Evaluation of the effectiveness of group screening methods as compared to no group screening

The focus of the paper is on the comparison of results obtained using group screening versus not using group screening in an experimental design methodology applied to a semiconductor manufacturing simulation model. The experiments were performed on the cycle time for the main product in the fabrication, which takes about 250 steps before completion. High utilization and large queue sizes were the basis for determining the five most critical workstations in the fabrication. Three parameters for each workstation were set as factors for investigation plus another more general important factor making a total of 16 input factors. A 2-stage group-screening experiment and a 2^k-p factional factorial were performed to identify the significant factors affecting the cycle time for the product. The results showed that the two methods could be very similar or very different depending on the choice of significance level for group screening, particularly at the early stages of eliminating group factors