Apparatus and methods regarding a processing system operable to implement an arbiter. The arbiter receives commands from non-prioritized and prioritized actors, and repeatedly issues an earliest received, non-issued command received from the non-prioritized actor. Execution of an immediately preceding issued command is completed or terminated by a sending actor of the immediately preceding issued command before a subsequent earliest received, non-issued command is issued. The arbiter also issues a command received from the prioritized actor upon receipt of the command received from the prioritized actor. Issuance of the command received from the prioritized actor interrupts issuance and execution of a command received from the non-prioritized actor. The commands from the non-prioritized and prioritized actors are issued to equipment controllers operable to control equipment of a well construction system.

A method for processing a plurality of semiconductor wafers includes acquiring a process parameter measurement for each of the semiconductor wafers, associating each of the semiconductor wafers with one of a plurality of groups based on a respective process parameter measurement for each of the semiconductor wafers, where each respective group corresponds to a respective recipe, and for each one of the groups, processing ones of the semiconductor wafers associated with that group together according to a respective recipe.

Apparatus and methods regarding a processing system operable to implement an arbiter. The arbiter receives commands from non-prioritized and prioritized actors, and repeatedly issues an earliest received, non-issued command received from the non-prioritized actor. Execution of an immediately preceding issued command is completed or terminated by a sending actor of the immediately preceding issued command before a subsequent earliest received, non-issued command is issued. The arbiter also issues a command received from the prioritized actor upon receipt of the command received from the prioritized actor. Issuance of the command received from the prioritized actor interrupts issuance and execution of a command received from the non-prioritized actor. The commands from the non-prioritized and prioritized actors are issued to equipment controllers operable to control equipment of a well construction system.

A production sequence optimizing method and a production sequence optimizing system that can reduce downtime caused by a setup operation. The production sequence optimizing method classifies a plurality of production programs which are continuously executed using a production line into a plurality of groups which share resources used for production and optimizes an execution order of the plurality of production programs. The production sequence optimizing method includes: a resource number counting step of counting the number of all resources held in stock; and a resource allocation step of allocating the resources to each of the groups on the basis of the number of all resources, the number of resources required for an N-th group, and the number of resources required for an (N+1)-th group.