Signature Analysis of Dispatch Schemes in Wafer Fabrication

Signature analysis is used to characterize lot dispatch priority schemes in wafer fabrication, a complex manufacturing operation. A number of idealized dispatch schemes are evaluated using a comprehensive assessment criterion. The production system analyzed in this paper is large in comparison to previous studies on manufacturing scheduling. Real dispatch schemes depend strongly on the characteristics of human implementation. Signature analysis provides the basis for measuring organizational performance by comparing formal dispatch schemes with each other and with actual dispatch schemes used in wafer fabrication.