Abstract
Interruptive production refers to abrupt change of production items or sequence in otherwise planned or optimized production schedule. Factories usually operate based on a planned schedule or set order releasing and dispatching rules which presumably enable efficient operations. However, in order to make the monthly production figures look better, it is often in industries that factories pull up the production priorities of products that can be finished by the end of each month thus disregarding the normal plan or dispatching rules. This phenomenon and the “super-hot-run” situations are interruptive productions which disrupt the optimal schedule and dispatching scheme. The negative impacts of disruptive productions may be quite significant – especially in semiconductor fabs when interruptive production changes often cause huge financial and operational impacts. Many people realize the negative impact of disruptive production, yet, there has been little known literature providing in-depth cost/benefit model for such phenomena not to mention a spread-sheet based decision support system for usage. This research analyzed in great depth the disruptive production phenomena in thin film and etching areas of a DRAM fab and established a cost model for such practice using I.C. fabrication industry as the application platform.