Infineon and Capacity Planning with dCp

Anyone who has read the book „The Goal“ by Eliyahu Goldratt can probably well imagine himself in the position of the protagonist Al Rogo who has exactly three months to optimize the processes in his factory to save them from their final ending. In the complex production processes, questions like „Where are my bottlenecks?“, „Which machines must be procured in the next six months?“, „How many additional production steps must I consider if the product mix changes?“ or „How many idle capacities are available in the factory for certain products?“ play a role.

The Goal

At Infineon, all these issues are answered by means of the dCp, the Dynamic Capacity Planning Tool. The objective was the introduction of a uniform capacity-planning tool within Infineon. With the help of this tool, production planning was to become more accurate, more transparent and faster, and the efforts for capacity planning were to be reduced considerably.

Achievements

By introducing a standardized dCp version, the efforts for IT-operations and the user support are reduced. By means of the dCP data model and the calculation algorithms or formulas, the data structure and calculating methods in the planning sector are unified to a large extent. Furthermore, available resources in production can be planned and utilized more effectively with dCp.

Role of dCp

The investment and equipment planning carried out with dCp completes the „vision-to-plan“ supply chain. Inquiries about required quantities are loaded into the dCp from the Corporate Model. There, they are compared to the line resp. production capacities, which depend on the individual product mix. The calculated results are then reported back to the Corporate Model.

Project Decision

After an internal benchmarking, and taking into account a McKinsey study, in which the dCp distinguished itself as the solution with the highest potential, the decision to implement the software solution dCp of the company Nimble* (http://www.dcesite.com) at Infineon was made in July 1999.

The focus of the company Nimble is on supplying complex logistical IT-systems for semiconductor and microelectronics production facilities.

After a workshop in July 1999, which was attended by representatives of the locations and cluster organisations, a project team and objective were defined.  

Project Milestones

For the implementation of dCp, the project CCIPT (Common Capacity & Investment Planning Tool) was started. In the formation of the Core Team, attention was paid to ensuring that the interests of the locations, the clusters and the headquarters were all represented. For each location, at least one key user was defined, and for each cluster one project manager.

Within the project organisation that acted worldwide, all tasks were defined clearly to ensure that the imminent challenges could be solved in the project team. Regularly held telephone conferences were used to exchange information.

The planning and implementation of a standardized hardware and software landscape (HP/UX 11.0 and Oracle 8i platform) for dCp were also a major milestone in the project implementation. Furthermore, a release and quality management system was implemented to ensure the quality of the software before the roll-out, by means of a proven test strategy (Model approach). This model approach describes the events and tasks to be performed during the software development. In addition, it is a process model with which projects can be executed in compliance with the ISO 9001 standard.

In the first phase, dCp was implemented in the Frontend facilities (This was completed in September 2000). From September 01 to January 02, the successful implementation in the Backend facilities was carried out. The course of the project in a very simplified form:

• Exact definition of the requirements on the part of the users
• Consolidation of the requirements in the Core Team (Project Management Team and Key Users)
• Specification of the requirements (Core Team)
• Software development including the implementation of the specification by the company Nimble
• Worldwide user training by Nimble
• Modelling (Line and data models) by the locations, supported by the IT LOG
• Qualification, test and roll-out of several software releases by the IT LOG
• Implementation and productive use of dCp at the locations worldwide

Benefits of dCp

The strengths of dCp lie in the combination of flexible capacity planning with fast, reliable calculation and simulation algorithms, taking into account cycle times (dynamic) in production, too. dCp is an analytical capacity planning tool which can be used to carry out exact calculations with different scenarios, within a few minutes. These scenarios can be changed or expanded by the user. The user interface allows the easy handling of the software, as well as comfortable data maintenance and scenario input. By means of dCp, bottlenecks can be considered quantitatively and detected early and, consequently, the initiation of appropriate counter-measures is accelerated.

Furthermore, the user can define the future requirements to production more specifically (e.g. yield increase, procurement of machines, ramp-up planning for new products etc.) and better analyze the consequences of such changes.

The results are viewed directly in the tool via different data cubes and views with different data dimensions. These results can also be copied directly into other IT-applications, as i.e. Excel or Powerpoint, for reporting or presentation purposes.

The resulting benefits are obvious. On the one hand, a better adjustment of required and available resources, resp. of required and feasible quantities, is possible. On the other hand, a measurable improvement of the capacity planning process is achieved. Consequently, future requirements for various scenarios are predictable. These benefits ultimately lead to a better adjustment to permanently changing situations, which results in reduced cycle times and improved delivery reliability.  

What is the user’s opinion ?

Planning tools for the semiconductor industry must be flexible, fast, transparent and reliable. dCp combines the benefits of spreadsheet calculation with the scenario capability. The calculating speed and reliability are based on standardized and generally acknowledged calculation algorithms with the required scope of flexibility. Thus, the goal of improving the accuracy, transparency and speed of capacity planning for production is achieved.

(*) Nimble was acquired by De Clercq Engineering in March 2006. More info