Shortening of product ramp-up by using a centralized knowledge base

The manufacturing industry is still struggling with predictability of quality, duration and costs for the ramp-up of new products. However, new product ramp-up becomes increasingly crucial due to further shortening of product life-cycles and the pressure on more sustainable and efficient manufacturing. In this paper, we introduce an approach based on a centralized knowledge base that comprises product and process master data, equipment structure, historical measurement results and means to apply quality management methods. The approach uses a knowledge base driven workflow that ensures knowledge exchange and reuse of existing knowledge within the production line. Based on a real-world use case from semiconductor manufacturing we evaluate how well this workflow enables knowledge reuse to guide product and process engineers to support a shift from a risky ramp-up project to a predictable ramp-up process.