[Production Planning Of Flat Panel Display]

by

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

Signed __________________ Date _________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION5

EMS manufacturing characteristics6

PCB Assembly Process7

Manufacturing Planning At An flat panel display Provider10

Relationship between data from the IT systems and the dynamic environment11

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW13

Flat-panel display device13

Production Planning And Scheduling15

Production Scheduling17

The Production Planning And Production Scheduling Interface18

Cycle Time19

Operations Scheduling23

Supply Chain Management24

Loading33

Sequencing35

Gantt Charts37

Scheduling Service Operations37

ERP And Application Limitations In A EMS Environment39

Uncertainty Factors In Manufacturing Planning41

Design Effect on Production Routings41

Design Effect on Machine Time42

Frequent Machine Stoppages43

Managing Uncertainty Factors In An flat panel display Manufacturing System54

Role of Changing Technology57

Process Yield Prediction Module61

Operation Time Calculation Module62

Chapter Summary63

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY65

Overall Description Of Proposed Planning System66

Production Planning Systems Generated Based On Product Designs67

Defining Production Resourses (Equipment) Based On Product Design In The Planning System68

Implementation - Production Routings Selection In Simulation Models69

Incorporating Yield Prediction Models In Simulation Models69

Selection of Regressors and Response Variables72

REFERENCES76

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Customer oriented manufacturing and production flexibility are critical success factors in today's electronics manufacturing domain. This calls for an effective and efficient way of manufacturing system organization and control. The prime focuses of such manufacturing organizations are their commitments to due dates and decreasing the production lead time in order to reduce costs. The electronics manufacturing domain is characterized by high product mixes and low volumes, resource constraints of both materials and machines, continuous advances of technology, and frequent process changes required by the customers, to name a few. Consequently, efficient production planning and precise demand forecasting become complicated and challenging tasks for an Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) provider. Additionally, the product demands in an flat panel display environment are highly varied, resulting in difficulties to predict demand profiles in a short period of time.

These aforementioned factors often lead to a large gap between the planned production lead time and actual production time, which further results in the challenges for flat panel display suppliers to fulfill the delivery commitment.

Achieving precise and timely forecasts for manufacturing planning and scheduling is of utmost importance to an flat panel display provider under the current turbulent market conditions. Even though many flat panel display providers have adopted

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, ERP systems, as the commercial software, often do not provide realistic production solutions for flat panel display manufacturing conditions due to a variety of reasons, such as, static planning, lacking real-time updating capabilities, and sub-optimal solutions, to name a few. Consequently, it is imperative for organizations to be aware of the plant conditions for effective planning.

This research endeavor is focused on developing a production planning system based on discrete event modeling and simulation that can incorporate characteristics of PCB assembly ...