Abstract
In this paper, the simulation analysis of the cell process in a thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) manufacturing was analyzed, and the effects of the lot release times and dispatching rule were considered. Discrete-event simulation models were developed in an e-M Plant to study this system. The lot release times and dispatching rule based on minimum setup times was used in this system. In order to improve the system performance, a heuristic algorithm for lot release times and a queue time maximum un-matches (QTMU) dispatching rule for rubbing machines are proposed. The simulation results revealed a substantial improvement of the cell process performance and reduced the setup times for the rubbing machine and the cycle time of TFT-array substrate and color filter (CF) substrate processing. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.