A case-based expert support system for due-date assignment in a wafer fabrication factory

Owing to the complexity of wafer fabrication, the traditional human approach to assigning due-date is imprecise and very prone to failure, especially when the shop status is dynamically changing. Therefore, assigning a due date to each order becomes a challenge to the production planning and scheduling staff. Since most production orders are similar to those previously manufactured, the case based reasoning (CBR) approach provides a suitable means for solving the due-date assignment problem. This research proposes a CBR approach that employs the k-nearest neighbors concept with dynamic feature weights and non-linear similarity functions. The test results show that the proposed approach can more accurately predict order due dates than other approaches.