Did You Know...
...that the Eveready Battery began as an invention called the "electric flowerpot," which was a tube with a battery and light bulb inside? The idea was to fasten this gizmo to the side of a flowerpot so it would illuminate the flowers from the bottom. The idea died on the vine and the businessman who licensed the flower pot, Conrad Huber, was left with a pile of useless tubes -- until he found a way to market them as batteries to light the world!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7356378 | Method and system for smart vehicle route selection In one aspect a factory automation system for a wafer fab is provided. The factory automation system comprises: a manufacturing execution system (“MES”) for providing lot information; a material control system (“MCS”) for providing dynamic traffic informatio... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7353379 | Methods for configuring a plasma cluster tool A method for configuring a plasma cluster tool is disclosed. The method includes generating a key file from option specifications, the key file encapsulating configuration restrictions specifically imposed on the plasma cluster tool. The method also includes generat... | 04/01/2008 |
| 7353078 | Semiconductor wafer processing apparatus and method for processing batch of wafers having variable number of wafer lots Disclosed is a semiconductor processing apparatus for processing batches of wafers with variable numbers of wafer lots. The apparatus includes an operator interface server adapted to receive batch information for a track-in operation, an equipment management server ... | 04/01/2008 |
| 7350100 | Method and apparatus for monitoring data-processing system A system management method and apparatus presents in real time an importance level of a job affected by a failure in distributed systems to make it possible to quickly deal with the failure and minimize business losses. The apparatus includes an integrated managemen... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7349863 | Dynamic planning method and system A dynamic planning method (DPM) generates a DPM project planning model. The DPM project planning model provides an activity pre-structured process model for activities of a DPM project plan. The DPM project planning model also provides a relationship pre-structured ... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7349751 | Method for autonomic control of a manufacturing system Disclosed is a method of controlling a manufacturing system. The invention automatically monitors current levels of partially completed products waiting to be processed by a tool (or group of tools) and determines whether the current levels exceed a predetermined li... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7343211 | Use of sub (partial) cycles, nested cluster cycles, and lot cycles for determining equipment capacities in a batch manufacturing facility A system and method for the simulation and modeling of biopharmaceutical batch process manufacturing facilities using process time lines is described herein. The system employs an eleven-field delimited string code which specifies the unit identifier code and the it... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7343345 | Payment model for an enterprise resource planning system A system and a computer software implemented method of processing payments comprising the following steps. A person enters a PO number, an invoice number and invoice amount from an invoice entry point into an invoice tracking module. The invoice tracking module tran... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7343279 | Universal approach for simulating, emulating, and testing a variety of serial bus types An electronic apparatus for testing equipment for serial busses employs a generic bus model that breaks down a serial bus into separate layers that are managed by separate processors. The processors have parameters that can be programmed for communicating via one ty... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7343353 | Method to turn off machines during-turn down period while achieving minimum cost and required cycle time A method and system for determining which machine tools to turn off during slow periods to achieve maximum cost savings with minimum cycle time increase. It uses a product demand forecast and a simplified approach to the X-factor theory to provide an objective, anal... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7343010 | System and method for integrated resource scheduling and task allocation According to the invention, a system and method for integrating call routing and workforce management functions in contact centers, enabling them to work together without opposing the influence of one against that of the other, is disclosed. In an embodiment of the ... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7343212 | Item substitution in the manufacture of products A method for item substitution in a manufacturing process includes receiving an order for manufacture of a product and generating a first electronic bill of material for the product. The first electronic bill of material identifies multiple primary components to be ... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7340482 | Preview function in a digital data preservation system A digital preservation system (10) for accepting a digital data record as input, for providing a preview of the digital data record on a display screen (80), for writing the data record in human-readable form onto a preservation-quality medium (210 | 03/04/2008 |
| 7337032 | Scheduling ahead for various processes A method and apparatus for scheduling ahead in a process flow for a manufacturing domain entity are disclosed. The method includes detecting an occurrence of a triggering event defined for a current process operation on the manufacturing domain entity; and schedulin... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7333773 | Coordination of cellular telephones in a residential area to obviate need for wired residential service A comprehensive method for coordinating cellular phones in a residential area to obviate the need for wired residential service. The present invention includes coordinating a set of wireless devices in a residential area to be able to receive a call directed to a us... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7333866 | Computer implemented management domain and method A computer implemented management domain for controlling the production of low volume advanced technology articles of manufacture is provided. The management domain includes an information library, an integrated manufacturing intelligence, and an interrogation netwo... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7331517 | Article reader program, article management method and article reader An article reader program of this invention comprises: detecting that a display of data concerning a first article is instructed by a user; calculating an article relevance degree between the first article and a second article; extracting the second article whose ar... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7330878 | Method and system for remote control of a local system A system and method for remote control including a control system having a memory and a CPU for sending and receiving control information and instructions at a first location, a software application for manipulating the control information sent and received by the c... | 02/12/2008 |
| 7328406 | System, method and software for managing and publishing resource availability data A system, method and software permitting the publication of resource availability information and the management of reservation requests therefor are provided. In an exemplary embodiment, a resource provider provides authorization, availability, descriptive, linking... | 02/05/2008 |
| 7324860 | Method, apparatus and program storage device for providing a cascading timeline of manufacturing events leading to completion of a manufactured product A method, apparatus and program storage device for providing a cascading timeline of manufacturing events leading to completion of a manufactured product is disclosed. A cascading timeline, or waterfall chart, is updated and distributed weekly to provide week-to-wee... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7324966 | Method for fulfilling an order in an integrated supply chain management system A method for fulfilling an order in a supply chain. The method is performed by extracting from a customer system information pertaining to the work order that specifies a piece of equipment to be repaired and items expected to be used during the repair procedure, de... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7321426 | Optical metrology on patterned samples An optical metrology system includes model approximation logic for generating an optical model based on experimental data. By eliminating theoretical model generation, in which the fundamental equations of a test sample must be solved, the model approximation logic ... | 01/22/2008 |
| 7319911 | Production control apparatus and production control method Embodiments of the invention provide a production control apparatus and a method capable of reducing the management load and providing improved convenience. In one embodiment, a control unit assigns an identifier to each unit variation (or each candidate) for each u... | 01/15/2008 |
| 7315765 | Automated control thread determination based upon post-process consideration A method, apparatus, and a system for determining a control thread based upon a process result are provided. At least one post-process parameter is received. The post parameter relates to a first workpiece upon which a plurality of processes have been performed by a... | 01/01/2008 |
| 7313452 | Substrate transfer controlling apparatus and substrate transferring method A substrate transfer controlling apparatus can easily maximize throughput of a substrate processing apparatus such as a semiconductor fabrication apparatus, and can satisfy a demand for immediacy of actions of a transfer device. The substrate transfer controlling ap... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7313530 | Methods and systems for generating and displaying the capacity of a delivery management system The present invention is adapted to calculate expected capacity utilization information by zone for a respective delivery agent within the zone then to display delivery agent shipping capacity information via a communications network. The present invention further p... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7310561 | Identifying critical operations of a production process Identifying an operation that is critical to meeting a due date of a production order includes identifying operations associated with the production order, obtaining schedules for the operations using infinite production planning, obtaining start intervals for the o... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7310562 | System and method for scheduling mold manufacturing A system for scheduling mold manufacturing includes a number of user computers (1) connected with a server (3) by a network (2), a standard parameter database (5), and a task scheduling database (6). Each user computer includes a s... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7308330 | Dynamic order swapping in BTO environment A method for addressing process variability in a build-to-order, mass customization production environment. The method includes receiving an order for a product having a particular configuration defined by the order, initiating a production order specifically assign... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7308329 | Method and apparatus for inspecting semiconductor wafer A substrate inspection apparatus includes a recipe preparation unit that batch-allocates a plurality of slots containing substrates of each type with a corresponding one of a plurality of original recipes to the each type, the plurality of original recipes correspon... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7305276 | Method, system, and computer program product for controlling the flow of material in a manufacturing facility using an extended zone of control The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for controlling the flow of material in a manufacturing facility using an extended zone of control. A method in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention comprises establishing ... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7303725 | Automated high volume slide staining system An automated slide processing apparatus includes a plurality of work stations arranged in a stack, and a transport/elevator for transporting slides between the various work stations. ... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7302304 | Systems and methods for production planning A system for production planning. A MES provides production information corresponding to a preset time period of a production line, monitors processing of work-in-process (WIP), and provides processing status information of the WIP. A processor determines a move tar... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7302305 | Job queue management system and method thereof, including clustering wafer lots processed by common recipe into group, and creating process job and control job A system and method for job queue management. A job queue management apparatus acquires multiple wafer lot records individually regarding a plurality of wafers processed by a recipe, clusters the wafer lots by the common recipe into a group, creates a process job co... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7295990 | Generating current order fulfillment plans based on expected future orders A method, system, and computer-readable medium for dynamically generating actual fulfillment plans for a current order or a potential order so as to enhance the future fulfillment process for expected future orders is described. In some situations, actual delivery i... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7292904 | Method for sizing production lot starts within a linear system programming environment Allocating limited manufacturing resources to achieve a feasible production plan that is consistent with customer demand is a difficult and common problem faced in many manufacturing industries. For large-scale multi-stage manufacturing systems, existing methods are... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7292903 | Methods for determining tool assignment preference and manufacturing systems using the same A method for determining tool assignment preference applied to a semiconductor manufacturing system. At least one first tool and second tool and at least one first semiconductor process and second semiconductor process applied to the tools are provided. Demand moves... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7293092 | Computing system and control method A parallel or grid computing system that having a plurality of nodes and achieves job scheduling for the nodes with a view toward system efficiency optimization. The parallel or grid computing system has a plurality of nodes for transmitting and receiving data and a... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7289860 | Method and apparatus for reserving a processing tool in a semiconductor fabrication facility The present invention provides a method, an apparatus, and a system for semiconductor manufacturing. The method includes accessing information indicative of operation of at least one first processing tool. The first processing tool is configured to process at least ... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7289867 | Automated integrated circuit device manufacturing facility using distributed control The system includes a plurality of process modules and an independent module controller for each of the plurality of process modules that is adapted to control the process tools within each of the process modules. Each of the independent module controllers performs ... | 10/30/2007 |
