The time is now to move to smarter manufacturing

The year 2020 sparked a tremendous acceleration in the digital transformation worldwide, driving a sharp rise in demand for semiconductors and escalating pressure on chip factories to reduce manual functions on the shop floor. The mindset of the semiconductor industry saw a remarkable shift as it recognized with heightened urgency the need to deploy data-driven visualization, analysis, scheduling and dispatching solutions to increase automation to improve production speed and efficiency.

Amidst the new excitement around Industry 4.0, chip manufacturers are rapidly deploying new technologies including Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Big Data, machine learning (ML) and autonomous intelligent vehicles (AIVs). Yet for many chip manufacturers, the path to building a smart factory is far from clear because they lack an overall digital transformation strategy.

Smart Manufacturing is a broad concept covering an array of technologies and solutions, making a holistic, mid- to long-term digitalization strategy rooted in the overall business strategy crucial. There are no shortcuts that can move a manufacturer instantly to Industry 4.0. Instead, this transformation is a step-by-step undertaking with a natural evolution.

Some factory tasks must remain manual – for now

The semiconductor industry has reached a point where manual processes are no longer efficient enough to support mass chip customization and remote operations. The many technological and standardization advances behind automation can help streamline some of a factory’s most labor-intensive tasks including the loading or unloading of machines or lot tracking and data collection while reducing operational costs.

Still, some tasks remain very difficult to automate. For example, handling errors and exceptions presents the greatest challenge since some errors are hard to anticipate. What’s more, the cost of automating error handling can be prohibitive.

Eliminating connectivity gaps

Often, critical data sources aren’t available due to lack of equipment integration, incomplete product quality monitoring or gaps in material tracking. Closing these gaps in connectivity enables the collection of data and provides rich, reliable information for analysis and reporting that can drive continuous operational improvements, optimizations and efficiencies throughout a factory. Keep in mind data integration alone can be a challenging task. The selection and proper enrichment of relevant data is, in many cases, not just a technical problem but requires a detailed and in-depth knowledge of the manufacturing steps to be analyzed and optimized.

Even when data is available, it might be still difficult to make decisions or implement improvements if it is in siloed systems that require manual processes to integrate and translate into useful information. Problem solving at this level is possible but extremely time-consuming. Manual integration is not only ineffective but costly, draining time, human resources and money from the factory. The right contextual information for the data is vital to unleash its potential and make improvements possible. Dispersed solutions cannot control processes because they span functional areas and people, physical and business entities. Backbone software for shop-floor operations that controls all other applications is central to smart manufacturing.

Data-driven manufacturing

The semiconductor industry is expert in data collection and leads many other industries in this area. The problem is chip companies often use only a fraction of the information they collect for the analysis and insights needed to improve operational efficiency. By comprehensively integrating all distributed data into a single version of truth – in one location where it is always available – companies can make data analysis and problem solving almost frictionless. Data platforms and edge solutions, within the context of manufacturing, will not be adopted as part of a greenfield initiative.

Building a solid automation architecture is only feasible and beneficial by deploying new technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Analysis of historical data provides important context and reveals deviations such as unexpected process time, uncommon material accumulations or issues with material transport. By integrating swift control actions for new data point collected, manufacturing operations can shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive analysis and operational improvements.

The tremendous increase in interest and investment in AI for manufacturing automation only became possible with the availability of low-cost sensors that generate huge volumes of data and solutions for storing and processing at a low cost. AI and other leading-edge technologies transform the tedious but critical process of extracting insights from data, making it instantaneous, streamlined and achievable for every manufacturer.

The maturity of smart manufacturing hinges on the extent to which a factory is data-driven. This requires foundational investments to improve traceability, connectivity and real-time operations – and finally making sure data helps us what to do and when to do it.

– This article originally appeared on SEMI’s blog. SEMI is a CFE Media content partner.

Original content can be found at www.semi.org.

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