Real-time yield monitoring through ERP systems

Globalization and increased competition requires an enterprise to focus on cost reductions, improved manufacturing processes and higher standards of quality. Effective yield management using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is crucial for the success of any manufacturing organization. An ERP system provides the infrastructure for consolidating all business operations by integrating the information flow across functions, including production planning and control. Yield management encompasses continuous process improvement initiatives directed at accurate determination, continuous monitoring and improvement of product yields. ERP systems are unable to model all of the business processes and hence, enterprises must either settle for the limited options that are present in an ERP package, or must re-engineer the corresponding processes. This research effort is directed at the development of an easy to implement, cost-effective, real-time yield tracking system called the Closed Lot Yield Tracker (CLYT), to be used in conjunction with an ERP system. The CLYT continually monitors the shop-floor conditions. In the event of any significant change the CLYT is accessed and updates the planning modules of the ERP system. Data mining techniques are used to retrieve the product data from the ERP Business Warehouse (BW) module and the Operational Data Store (ODS). The ODS contains information pertaining to the defects that occurred during the product's routing steps, at a production order level, thus facilitating the accuracy of yield measurements. Moreover, object-oriented techniques are used to generate increased granular reports for the end-user. The CLYT bridges the gap between the ERP system and the actual shop-floor data. This helps in faster and more accurate decision making. This research utilizes relatively new performance metrics for yield management called "Closed Lot Yields (CLY)" and "Actual Cost of Yields (ACOY)". The proposed metrics could be integrated in the Quality Management (QM) module of ERP systems.