Track chemicals from order to use on a tool during manufacturing

During high-end (Semi) manufacturing, many chemicals are used, all of which have their own specific shelf life, storage conditions, and procedures for handling. Once taken out of Stores and taken onto the shop floor, it is critical to track these chemicals and carefully manage their use. We worked with a key customer to identify best practices in chemical handling, and developed a system that would integrate with their stock control application (SAP). Implementation of this MTS has delivered the following capabilities:

• Know which chemicals are used during manufacture on every item at every step of the procedure.
• Track a chemical, down to individual container level, from arrival at the manufacturing facility to storage to production and disposal.
• Matching which batch of each chemical is associated with each lot manufactured.
• Verifying chemicals have not expired, have been stored correctly, being used correctly, in sequence and on which tool.
• Tracking and triggering purchase requests as levels dictate.
• Handheld barcode scanners are used to read chemical types, batch numbers and expiry dates.
• Interfacing to the MES to verify tool, lot ID.
• Connection to SAP for purchasing and stock control.
• Printing custom labels and barcodes for individual tracking of split batches.

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