Advanced planning and scheduling for TFT-LCD color filter fab with multiple lines

Intense global competition and declining profit have caused most thin film transistor liquid crystal display manufacturers to increase their competitiveness by improving productivity and reducing cycle times. An advanced planning and scheduling (APS) system was developed with Microsoft Visual Basic for Application to automatically generate production schedules for a color filter fab with multiple lines. This system can assign orders to production lines, plan order release time, and balance the equipment loading. Both forward scheduling and backward scheduling were used in APS. Experimental results indicated that APS can significantly reduce manual scheduling time while maintaining the quality of scheduling results. Compared to manual operations, it can save more than 87 % of scheduling time and the quickness is especially important when rescheduling is needed due to production uncertainties such as equipment breakdown or material shortage. Production controllers can use this APS to generate initial schedule and make adjustment based on experience.