NXP

Streamlining Back-End Manufacturing with Integrated Systems and Processes

To control costs while continuing to expand capabilities and facilities, Philips Semiconductors relies on Camstar’s InSite® MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to efficiently track and manage huge volumes of diverse products across multiple unique manufacturing sites. By standardizing on InSite, the company has cut support and implementation costs with a flexible solution that delivers timely information, reduces manual handling of materials on test equipment, and minimizes processing errors.

THE CHALLENGE:

ACHIEVE HIGH-VOLUME, HIGH-QUALITY PRODUCTION ACROSS PRODUCTS, FACILITIES
Philips Semiconductors has earned its place among the world’s leading providers of semiconductor products through innovative design and manufacturing practices. At several sites across South East Asia, the company saws, assembles, tests, and packages its trademark small-footprint, low-power consumption products. “In the past we had different homegrown shop floor control applications running at the sites. Some sites had no system and relied on a paper based system. We wanted to standardize shop floor applications into a single system capable of keeping up with changing technology, that could also simplify how we interface with and support the enterprise business solutions.” says Mr. Peter Yates, Senior Vice President, Philips Semiconductors. “We needed a better way to achieve highvolume, high-quality production across all products and all facilities and keep the total cost of ownership down.”

UPDATING LEGACY SYSTEMS TO MEET CHANGING REQUIREMENTS
At each of the factories, disparate ERP, warehouse, and control systems made it difficult to propagate changes and access real-time manufacturing information. “We wanted to centralize our support and reduce the need for multi-disciplinary skills at each site,” explains Mr. Cliff Wong, IT Manager Industrial Strategy and Operations. Satisfying unique customer packaging and testing requirements application and system changes, or resulting in production workarounds that were not captured by any system. According to Mr. Wong, “We wanted a solution that would allow us to make continual changes and improvements to methods, machines, and practices and communicate those changes to all operations quickly and accurately.”

MANAGING HUGE VOLUMES OF DIVERSE PRODUCTS
For a company that boasts a portfolio of several thousand products and ships tens of billions of units a year, manufacturing processes are inherently complex. Tracking and managing huge volumes of diverse products with several processing variations was a big challenge for the global Philips MES team and the production sites. Philips needed to proactively adjust processes without disrupting production, see live production information and comprehensive analysis reports, plus complete traceability of every product shipped.

REDUCING MANUAL HANDLING AND PROCESSING ERRORS
Labels on the tiny products are not visible to the naked eye, which made it difficult to track individual lots and units. In addition, because different units of the same product yield different qualities and characteristics, delivering optimal units to customers presented another challenge. To avoid processing errors, Philips needed a way to safeguard lot flow and identification by minimizing manual handling on test equipment.

THE SOLUTION:

MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY FOR MULTI-PLANT OPERATIONS
To control costs while continuing to improve processes, quality, and yield, Philips needed to rapidly implement changes to complex manufacturing processes across multiple unique sites. They also needed to to limit manual data collection and product handling that resulted in processing errors. After evaluating InSite MES, Philips determined that the Camstar solution met or exceeded its requirements while reducing the total cost of system ownership.

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