Manufacturing execution system, equipment interface and method of operating a manufacturing execution system

• US 20080103617A1
• Filed: 10/27/2006
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ent Services Development Corporation LP (DXC Technology Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Kumar, Akhauri Prakash, Subramanian, Jayaraman
• Granted Patent: US 7,610,177 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/96
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

The invention relates to a manufacturing execution system comprising:

• • a manufacturing execution plan being indicative of a set of manufacturing steps to be executed for manufacturing a product,
  • a planning component for determining a context-specific data collection plan of data to be collected during execution of one of the manufacturing steps,
  • a service interface for providing the data collection plan in response to a service request,
  • a database for storing data that has been collected in accordance with a context-specific data collection plan

Claims

1. A manufacturing execution system comprising:

a manufacturing execution plan indicative of manufacturing steps to be executed for manufacturing a product,

a planning component for determining a context-specific data collection plan for data to be collected during execution of at least one of the manufacturing steps,

a service interface for providing the data collection plan in response to a service request,

a database for storing data that has been collected in accordance with a context-specific data collection plan.

2. The manufacturing execution system of claim 1, the context-specific data collection plan being specified by a set of objects.

3. The manufacturing execution system of claim 1, the context-specific data collection plan being a predefined default data collection plan.

4. The manufacturing execution system of claim 1, further comprising an analytical component for analytical processing of the data stored in the database, the planning component being operable to determine a modified context-specific data collection plan depending on a result of the analytical processing.

5. The manufacturing execution system of claim 4, the modified context-specific data collection plan being provided by replacing or modifying at least one of the objects of the set of objects.

6. The manufacturing execution system of claim 4, wherein the modified context-specific data collection plan is provided in response to a subsequent service request relating to the same context as a previous service request that resulted in the modification of the context-specific data collection plan.

7. The manufacturing execution system of claim 1, further comprising a storage component for storing a predefined criterion and a related action, wherein the action is triggered if the predefined criterion is not met by the data.

8. The manufacturing execution system of claim 7, the action being a maintenance action for a manufacturing tool used for the manufacturing of the product.

9. The manufacturing execution system of claim 8, the service interface being adapted to send a maintenance request indicative of the action to a maintenance workflow manager.

10. The manufacturing execution system of claim 1, the service interface being adapted to be coupled to a communication network.

11. An equipment interface comprising:

a first interface for coupling to a plurality of manufacturing tools via a first communication network,

a second interface for sending a request for a data collection plan of at least one of the manufacturing tools to a manufacturing execution system and for receiving a response from the manufacturing execution system carrying the data collection plan,

the second interface being operable to forward the data collection plan to the one of the manufacturing tools via the first communication network.

12. The equipment interface of claim 11, the second interface being operable to send data that has been collected in accordance with the data collection plan to the manufacturing execution system via a second communication network for storage in a database of the manufacturing execution system.

13. A method of operating a manufacturing execution system, the manufacturing execution system comprising a manufacturing execution plan indicative of manufacturing steps to be executed by manufacturing tools for manufacturing a product, the method comprising:

receiving a request for a context-specific data collection plan from at least one of the manufacturing tools,

determining the context-specific data collection plan for data to be collected during execution of one of the manufacturing steps depending on the context of the one of the manufacturing steps,

sending the context-specific data collection plan to the at least one of the manufacturing tools in response to the request.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the response is sent to an interface for forwarding to the at least one of the manufacturing tools.

15. The method of claim 13, the context-specific data collection plan being a default data collection plan.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

acquiring data in accordance with the data collection plan,

processing of the acquired data to provide a result,

determining a modified data collection plan depending on the result.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the modified data collection plan is sent to a requester in response to a subsequent service request relating to the same context.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising acquiring data in accordance with the data collection plan, and triggering an action that is assigned to a predefined criterion, if the acquired data does not meet the predefined criterion.

19. The method of claim 18, the action being a maintenance action for maintenance of the one of the manufacturing tools.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the data collection plan is provided as an extended markup language (XML) document.

21. The method of claim 13, wherein the product is selected from the group consisting of semiconductor products, automotive products, pharmaceutical products, solar cells, electronic devices, hard discs, consumer electronics products, and integrated electronic circuits.

22. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions for performing a method in accordance with claim 13.