Product: Semiconductor Products
Number of Employees: 6000
Years in Business: 47
Location: Essex Junction, VT

Situation

IBM Burlington (BTV) produces the world's most advanced semiconductor technology. BTV initiated a pilot project with the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center (VMEC), a NIST MEP network affiliate, in the spring of 2004 with the manufacturing equipment maintenance team. The project focused on a fleet of 14 etch chambers, one of the many industry-leading and technologically diverse manufacturing processes employed at IBM. These tools were particularly difficult to requalify for production after maintenance work, causing delays and undesirable product defect trends.

Project/Solutions

The maintenance team attended classes on lean manufacturing taught by experts at VMEC, funded in part by the Vermont Training Program of the Department of Economic Development. The team used a technique called "value stream mapping" to define what was involved in each step from the time a tool goes down until it is back in production. Their goal is to achieve stability in the tool set, thereby reducing the cycle time required to process product. The maintenance team identified wasted time associated with spare parts, ranging from acquiring parts kits from the supply crib, to getting the parts they needed, to determining which parts to replace. The team addressed business control issues and secured funding to have two complete spare parts kits available in the line at all times. They established a standard procedure to use all the parts in a kit instead of attempting piecemeal repairs, and developed a system to easily locate equipment needed to test for chamber leaks after servicing.

Results

The effort brought significant results. The 14 tools showed a 42% increase in operating hours. The first-time-right performance for maintenance soared from less than 50% in some cases, to near 90%, while their turnaround time was reduced by 40%. Chip defect levels also dropped, amounting to a 30% improvement in quality (good chips per wafer) and revenue for the high volume product that they monitored.

Thanks to the success of the pilot project, an ambitious effort is under way to apply lean principles to BTV's entire manufacturing product flow. "It's part of our ultimate goal to map everything that happens from customer order, to marketing, to supply chain, through manufacturing, to packaging and test, and shipment," said Stephanie Marsiglio, an engineer and lead facilitator on Burlington's lean team.