Process optimization using a shop floor integrated advisory and assistance system for design of experiments (DoE) - an application in electronics manufacturing

Today's trends in manufacturing systems like minimizing processing cycles reflect in new challenges for the usage and application of Design of Experiments (DoE). Because of the difficult system analysis in the introducing step of DoE, the effort for choosing suitable experimental designs and running the experiments as well as the difficult evaluation of the data, the factor time becomes a critical success factor for the application of DoE in complex process chains. There is a specific need to support the user of DoE directly and just in time on the shop floor. Because of this demands, the authors present a concept of a web-based, shop floor integrated advisory and assistance system for DoE in electronics manufacturing, that guides the user through all phases of DoE. The current work represents results of the research project "Design of Experiments for Manufacturing Processes of finely structured Electronic Products with Numerous Variations" of Collaborative Research Centre SFB 356 "Production Systems for Electronics" funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (German Research Foundation).