Three key categories to implement supply chain MPS in a semiconductor foundry

The MPS (master production schedule) is the most important plan that a foundry can develop for production, inventory, staffing, etc. It sets the quantity of each end-item to be completed during each specific period of a short-range planning horizon. In the past, the production control engineers in a semiconductor foundry normally provided a monthly MPS plan. However, this was thought to be too inflexible, because the foundry´s customer delivery requirements were continually changing, with a variety of different and urgent requests to meet the consumer market. A foundry needs to rapidly calculate and simulate its capacity, and attempt to fulfil the delivery requirements of every customer, and has become a very important issue within the semiconductor industry. In recent years, many foundries have established a supply chain feasibility study group, and have begun to study the best solutions to integrated supply chain management system issues that provide total customer-oriented internal planning and the execution of business processes. After several years of effort, the automatic MPS was successfully implemented in certain foundries. It became possible to have a flexible daily updated MPS that included input related to capacity status, the most updated order information and WlP balance, and the net results. The foundry could then follow the up-to-date data to meet its delivery goals, providing a major enhancement to the most important aspect of customer service-delivery