Managing Automation - September 2008 - (Page 37)

SPECIAL REPORT HIGH ACHIEVER: DATA & INTEGRATION MASTERY FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR Unsatisfied with a materials location system that was sapping workers’ time, Freescale used an integrated RFID system to get its semiconductor plant back on track. BY CHRIS CHIAPPINELLI n 2006, Freescale Semiconductor was facing a problem common to companies that must track material through an extended production cycle: the materials — in this case silicon wafers — were proving elusive. At the company’s Oak Hill fabrication facility in Austin, TX, hundreds of operators were wasting lots of time looking for wafers, and productivity was suffering. The company’s answer was an innovative application of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology integration that helped make the company’s fabrication process much more productive. It also helped earn Freescale Managing Automation’s 2008 Progressive Manufacturing High Achiever Award for Data and Integration Mastery. Semiconductor fabrication is an intricate series of work processes performed in a clean room environment. Transporting the silicon wafers that eventually become semiconductors through hundreds of steps demands not just great care, but also a good deal of ef ficiency in order to keep cycle times low. “In the world of semiconductor manufacturing, every step, every keystroke, every second of the operator’s day is well accounted for to try and increase the overall operator efficiency,” says Ivan Hovey, Freescale’s IT development manager. But, by 2006, Freescale officials knew ef ficiency was at a tipping point. Throughout each working day, Oak Hill’s operators received instructions from the company’s manufacturing execution system (MES) to retrieve certain wafers for processing. Once they knew which lot to I use, however, they had to find it, which meant scanning what Hovey calls a “bread rack,” looking for the carrying cassettes with the correct sticker numbers. The process took more than four minutes, on average. “They themselves recognized how painful it was to locate the lots that they needed to process,” Hovey says of the workers. The company decided on a solution that would piggyback on the Oak Hill plant’s existFreescale Semiconductor ing infrastructure and deCompany revenue/Employees: $6.4 billion/24,000 liver better information to Location: Austin, TX the fab’s workers. The result was a system of RFID Industry: Semiconductor manufacturing tags that transmitted locaProject name: Improving Semiconductor Fabrication tion data over the factory’s Productivity by Leveraging WiFi and Active RFID for Work-inProgress Asset Tracking beefed-up WiFi network. Freescale enlisted RFID Project leader: Ivan Hovey, IT Development Manager provider AeroScout, which Core technologies: Active RFID, Wi-Fi network, MES specializes in WiFi-based ROI: Significant increase in worker productivity and systems, to outfit wafer cycle times lots with active RFID tags that would identify each lot’s location, giving workers a guiding system they hadn’t had before. But data alone didn’t solve Freescale’s woes; the integration of the RFID data into the company’s MES system truly brought the ROI home. “We knew that to be successful, we were going to have to integrate with the MES,” says Jennifer Johns, the RFID IVAN HOVEY project lead. “We didn’t IT Development Manager want to have a separate system that they were going to use to try to find the [location] information.” Freescale’s home-built integration between the AeroScout system and the in-house MES, which debuted in 2007, now allows a fab worker looking for the next lot of wafers to search for it in the MES system. The MES signals the RFID tag to identify itself, which it does by rapidly blinking its LED for the worker to see. Since the implementation, location time has dropped from more than four minutes to less than one minute. “Repeated over all the operators, all the shifts, all the lots they have to find, it’s a pretty significant benefit,” Hovey says. A progressive solution to the guesswork that had plagued Freescale — and an award-winning productivity boost. 37 September 2008

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Managing Automation - September 2008 Contents Take 1 Letters Tech Vendors Defy Economic Slump by Plugging into Developing World Growth New E2open Chief Outlines Plan to Accelerate Growth Is This Marketing as It Used to Be or Something New? The OMAC Group Attempts to Widen Its Influence Automation Federation Names Chief, Plots Growth Notes Cover story: The Innovation Gap Special Report: Meet the Progressive Manufacturing High Achievers Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Business Model Mastery Innovation Mastery Customer Mastery Supply Network Mastery Data & Integration Mastery Education & Training Mastery Leadership Mastery Operational Excellence Mastery Special Report: Catching the Wireless Wave Part 1: No Clear Infrastructure Winner Part 2: Wireless Apps Take Wing Part 3: The Human Side of Wireless Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - September 2008

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