In one or more embodiments, an information handling system (IHS) manufacturer is configured to: manufacture multiple motherboards configured to be installed in multiple IHS product lines; respectively install multiple non-volatile memory media on the multiple motherboards; store first product line firmware, associated with a first product line of the IHS manufacturer, via the multiple non-volatile memory media; provide a first portion of the multiple motherboards to a first division; and provide a second portion of the multiple motherboards to a second division; the first division is configured to: permanently store a first IHS identity type on the first portion of the multiple motherboards; and the second division is configured to: permanently store a second IHS identity type on the second portion of the multiple motherboards; and store second product line firmware via non-volatile memory media of the second portion of the multiple motherboards.

The method can include at a controller, controlling a manufacturing machine to perform a manufacturing process step for a given feature of a plurality of features of a part, including executing instructions causing the manufacturing machine to perform the manufacturing process step, the instructions comprising an identifier of the given feature and a definition of the manufacturing process step to be executed in relation to the given feature; at the controller, during the manufacturing process step, generating manufacturing data from the manufacturing process step; and by the controller, associating the manufacturing data to the identifier of the given feature in a non-transitory memory.

A failure of a machine or the like is rapidly detected to efficiently operate the machine. A cell control device of a production system includes a product information monitoring unit for monitoring the product information, a component supply state monitoring unit for monitoring plural kinds of components to be supplied to at least one cell and the number of each kind of components, and a notification unit which transmits a notice to a higher-level management controller when the number of each kind of components, which is monitored by the component supply state monitoring unit, deviates from a predetermined range determined for each kind of components.

In one or more embodiments, an information handling system (IHS) manufacturer is configured to: manufacture multiple motherboards configured to be installed in multiple IHS product lines; respectively install multiple non-volatile memory media on the multiple motherboards; store first product line firmware, associated with a first product line of the IHS manufacturer, via the multiple non-volatile memory media; provide a first portion of the multiple motherboards to a first division; and provide a second portion of the multiple motherboards to a second division; the first division is configured to: permanently store a first IHS identity type on the first portion of the multiple motherboards; and the second division is configured to: permanently store a second IHS identity type on the second portion of the multiple motherboards; and store second product line firmware via non-volatile memory media of the second portion of the multiple motherboards.

A product design and process design device includes: a storage unit that stores design specification information containing the tolerance of a dimensional variation at any site of an assembly product, part dimension error information, assembly facility error information, assembly tolerance information, the part dimension error information, and the assembly facility error information, part manufacturing cost information, and facility investment cost information with respect to the assembly facility error information; a tolerance distribution processing unit that uses the assembly tolerance information to generate proposed tolerance distributions that differ in distributional combination with respect to each error, and calculates part manufacturing costs and facility investment costs; a facility planning processing unit that determines a proposed tolerance distribution, with, as an evaluation index, total production costs respectively including the sums of the part manufacturing costs and the facility investment costs calculated; and an output unit that outputs the proposed tolerance distribution.

The present invention indicates an information processing system that can be exploited in a large number of manufacturing companies, which work on order.

In such companies, the experience of the workers is a strategic and essential resource; the present invention transforms the substance of such experience, from a purely humanistic entity into a technical factor in all respects: a heritage preserved in the memories of computer systems. The invention consists in teaching the use of known mathematical tools derived from identification theory, to extract and encode the aforementioned wealth of experience. The inventive step consists in the fact that, although the necessary data and information are potentially available, a sample of training data, as such, suitable for using an identification model, is in fact not available, nor it is trivial to derive it from the data that are actually available.

A product design and process design device includes: a storage unit that stores design specification information containing the tolerance of a dimensional variation at any site of an assembly product, part dimension error information, assembly facility error information, assembly tolerance information, the part dimension error information, and the assembly facility error information, part manufacturing cost information, and facility investment cost information with respect to the assembly facility error information; a tolerance distribution processing unit that uses the assembly tolerance information to generate proposed tolerance distributions that differ in distributional combination with respect to each error, and calculates part manufacturing costs and facility investment costs; a facility planning processing unit that determines a proposed tolerance distribution, with, as an evaluation index, total production costs respectively including the sums of the part manufacturing costs and the facility investment costs calculated; and an output unit that outputs the proposed tolerance distribution.

In one embodiment, a production management apparatus includes a flow obtaining module configured to obtain a plurality of processing flows to process a wafer from a flow storage module. The apparatus further includes a route creating module configured to select a plurality of steps from the plurality of processing flows, and configured to create a processing route to execute the plurality of steps selected from the plurality of processing flows. The apparatus further includes a flow creating module configured to select a plurality of steps from the processing route, and configured to create a new processing flow including the plurality of steps selected from the processing route.

A production system includes at least one production machine, a machine management device, and a production management device. The production machine transmits cumulative total use time data to the machine management device. The production management device has a transfer part which transfers scheduled production number information, recommended inspection time information, and inspection reservation information. The machine management device has a determination part which determines, based on the cumulative total use time data of each production machine and the recommended inspection time information, whether an inspection is necessary within a predetermined period of time, and an extraction part which extracts a predetermined number of dates from the extracted reservable dates, in order of smallest to largest scheduled production number, based on the inspection reservation information and the scheduled production number information.

The method can include at a controller, controlling a manufacturing machine to perform a manufacturing process step for a given feature of a plurality of features of a part, including executing instructions causing the manufacturing machine to perform the manufacturing process step, the instructions comprising an identifier of the given feature and a definition of the manufacturing process step to be executed in relation to the given feature; at the controller, during the manufacturing process step, generating manufacturing data from the manufacturing process step; and by the controller, associating the manufacturing data to the identifier of the given feature in a non-transitory memory.