Resource Planning for New Product Testing in R&D

Yin Yishu

Abstract

In semiconductor and sensor industries, the testing of new product specifications must be done within a certain limited period of time using limited resources such as operators and machines. At the same time, the performance of each test outcome will vary from day to day, from part to part, and from operator to operator. Hence, the planning and allocation of resources for new product testing in Research and development (R&D) is a complex problem. This thesis is more focus on to solve project duration issues happened during planning process. Two cases with common method to solve this type of problem is listed and studies via computational algorithms and simulation software. The two common method this thesis used is cycle time reduction method and shortest path algorithms method. These two methods were set since they are the easiest and the most common way in scheduling. The detailed algorithm for each method was analyzed via literature review and methodology discussed in this report. Due to the advantage of simulation modeling and the complexity of computational algorithm, case studies with clear problem definition are necessary for model building and simulation modelling helps further analysis. It also helps to prove the efficiency of these method easily and faster.