We examine how to reduce the adverse effects of machine down time by prioritizing production equipment for attention by a limited number of maintenance personnel. The maintenance scheduling policies use system information to determine which machines are the most critical at a given time. This information includes repair times, queue lengths, due dates, available capacity, and steady-state utilizations. The effects of different staffing levels are also considered. A discrete-event simulation model of a wafer fabrication facility is used to examine the performance of the different policies. Results indicate that the choice of maintenance scheduling policy can significantly affect system performance under restrictive staffing levels. Moreover, factory performance is shown to be sensitive to small changes in staffing level.

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We comidct the problem of "aging spare parts inventories in a semicotxikm wafir fabrication fwility. We study the petformame of four different invenwry control policies using sinudatwn and mathematical models. Preliminary res& show that two of the models yield sipuficant improvements over the current inventory "agemenl policy.

We present a decision support system for spare parts management in a wafer fabrication facility. The system is based on an analytical stochastic inventory model, which calculates the reorder level and quantity for each part to attain a specified service level. Results from our simulation study indicate that the policies suggested by the system either improve the service level or reduce the operating cost.