A tailored non-linear fluctuation smoothing rule for semiconductor manufacturing factory scheduling

A tailored non-linear fluctuation smoothing rule is proposed in this study to improve the performance of scheduling jobs in a semiconductor manufacturing factory. The tailored non-linear fluctuation smoothing rule is modified from the well-known fluctuation smoothing rules with three innovative treatments. At first, the fluctuation in the remaining cycle time estimate is smoothed and then its influence is balanced with that of the release time or the mean release rate. Subsequently, the difference in the slack is magnified by applying the 'division' operator instead. Thirdly, the content of the non-linear fluctuation smoothing rule can be tailored to the semiconductor manufacturing factory to be scheduled. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, production simulation is also applied in this study to generate some test data. According to experimental results, the proposed methodology out-performed nine existing approaches in reducing the cycle time averages and standard deviations. In addition, the tailored non-linear scheduling rule was also shown to be a Pareto optimal solution for scheduling jobs in a semiconductor manufacturing factory.