A Scheduling Algorithm for Workstations with Limited Waiting Time Constraints in a Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Facility

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problem of scheduling wafer lots with limited waiting times between pairs of consecutive operations in a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility. For the problem of minimizing total tardiness of orders, we develop a priority rule‐based scheduling method in which a scheduling decision for an operation is made based on the states of workstations for the operation and its successor or predecessor operation. To evaluate performance of the suggested scheduling method, we perform simulation experiments using real factory data as well as randomly generated data sets. Results of the simulation experiments show that the suggested method performs better than a method suggested in other research and the one that has been used in practice.