Analysis of wafer fabrication facilities using four variations of the open queueing network decomposition model

We analyze three wafer fabrication facilities with four open queueing network decomposition models – Whitt (1983, 1985), and Bitran and Tirupati (1988), Suri et al. (1993). In the first facility, which is located in North America, the values of cycle time and WIP inventory predicted by each model are about 10% higher than the actual values observed in the facility. The estimates are on the high side because managers and operators in the …