Order management for semiconductor manufacturing: A new approach realized with artificial neural networks

Turbulent markets have led to changes in the manufacturing area, paving the way for new manufacturing concepts and planning approaches. The new PPC model which is presented in the first part of this paper counts among these new planning concepts and is based on the general PPC task of allocating orders to resources. The second part deals with a planning problem which is specific to the semiconductor industry. The conventional planning procedure, according to which resources are planned with constant lead times for given planning periods, presents a real dilemma for semiconductor manufacturer. One way out of this dilemma is a rough planning that is based on variable lead times. This article describes such a procedure based on an iterative planning concept using artificial neural networks to calculate the variable lead times