Integrator Ops (igOps)

Tracks equipment utilization, measures overall equipment efficiency, identifies all efficiency losses, and reveals their root causes

Next generation equipment utilization tracking system

A tester utilization tracking system is a common and necessary part of any modern test cell. The benefits of utilization tracking are well understood as well as its limitations. Most tracking systems depend on people manually changing the state of the equipment at the proper time. This reliance on manual state changes leads to comforting gains in Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) that correspond poorly with both reality and financial trends. Over time the situation becomes worse as workers learn how to manipulate the tracking system to raise the efficiency in their work domains.

Automatic Equipment State Changes

Invantest cell controllers(also known as station controllers) record and quantify the activities and results in a test cell. When the state of the test cell changes (e.g. equipment stops during production), the cell controller automatically records the event and passes the event record to igOps to trigger an automatic change of state. Information about the state change is also communicated to igOps so that it is available for root cause analysis. Automatic state changes accurately record what actually happened at the test cell along with the exact time when it happened. In this way, the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) metrics produced by igOps are both accurate and reliable and available for analysis in Invantest's Efficiency Analyzer and Virtual Test Floor.

Reveal Root Causes of Efficiency Losses

igOps captures ALL efficiency losses at the test cell, even systematic, micro losses from equipment setup errors resulting in abnormally long test and index times that are only visible to a cell controller. When it discovers an efficiency loss, igOps also captures the root cause of this loss and records both loss and root cause for later analysis. When users view the efficiency losses in the Efficiency Losses application, they can drill down to reveal root causes for corrective action. igOps has overcome the deficiencies in first generation OEE systems that highlight the losses but leave the root cause as a costly mystery to be solved by hard work.

Compliant with SEMATECH Industry Standards

igOps OEE metrics are compliant with SEMATECH industry standards. In addition, it computes other Invantest efficiency metrics that isolate efficiency losses to the operational domains of different user groups. In this way, the demoralizing effects of falling efficiency due to factors outside a group's control can be avoided.

Usage is Simple and Intuitive

A complicated production tool will lower the equipment efficiency at the test cell. Therefore, usage of igOps is simple and obvious. If training is required, Invantest is committed to improving the igOps design to eliminate this training requirement.