Traditional, manually-operated shop floors are being phased out, paving the way for Industry 4.0. In this era, smart manufacturing is synonymous with automation. For manufacturers, automated shop floor machinery, autonomous robots, and unmanned factories running 24/7 signify the pinnacle of smart manufacturing. This pushes them to invest in automation, hoping to enhance production efficiency in the face of hyper-competitive markets and labor shortages. But this efficiency continues to elude many.

The reality is, smart manufacturing is not merely automation. It is a continuous journey, whose limits could be stretched far to deliver unparalleled efficiency.

MTS Reliability Technologies (MTS) is bringing unmatched production efficiency to manufacturers with its wide-ranging, data-driven, smart manufacturing technology solutions. Driven to expand the scope of smart manufacturing, MTS helps build smart factories by drastically reducing equipment breakdowns and enhancing product quality and yield through constant technology improvements.

“We believe that to build a smart factory, we need to first fulfill the primary steps of reducing downtime and ensuring high-quality production,” says Robert Tsai, managing director of MTS.

With this conviction, MTS develops smart solutions that ensure zero machine downtime and 100% overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), ensuring round-the-clock production—ideal for heavy-duty industrial settings that cannot afford workflow disruption.

By implementing its tech solutions, manufacturers experience a massive increase in machine life and production efficiency, with a corresponding decrease in capital expenditures (capex) for equipment maintenance and repair, process cycle times, and shop floor personnel. Catering primarily to the semiconductor manufacturing industry, MTS also delivers its solutions across industries that include nuclear power, steel, paper, petrochemical, textile, cement, oil, and beverage production.

Roots of a Paradigm Shift

MTS was established by accomplished industry fellows who shared a vision to transform the way industries operate, develop products, and conduct business. The company is equipped with more than three decades of smart manufacturing know-how, which it leverages to develop advanced digital solutions to eradicate manufacturing production woes. This helps manufacturers excel in Industry 4.0, while preparing them for Industry 5.0. Instrumental in this endeavor is MTS’ global team of nearly 2,000 domain specialists.

The vast industry expertise and a deep databank of industry knowledge have led MTS to consider physical data to be ideal for advancing smart manufacturing. According to MTS, first-hand, real-world machine data gathered by AI is more reliable for modelling smart manufacturing solutions than big data. This enables MTS to provide greater efficiencies to manufacturers with its smart tech solutions.

“We are the only smart equipment solution provider that uses industry physical data instead of big data, which helps us deliver far greater value to customers,” states Robert Tsai.

The Next Generation of Shop Floor Orchestration

Powered by physical data to information-knowledge-insight-wisdom, MTS achieves the defining criteria for a smart factory, which is connectivity.

Wisely connected shop floor equipment and processes facilitate streamlined production, helping achieve maximum efficiency and quality yields. This interconnection is orchestrated by its knowledge engineering platform, MTS Smart Manufacture & Domain AI Center Platform (SMDAP). Its features include real-time equipment condition monitoring and physical signal and data capture, with auto-compensation, auto-recovery, and auto-optimization. This empowers manufacturers to control their production processes better with centralized, real-time visibility into their shop floor equipment status.

The AI-enabled platform seamlessly connects production equipment, automatically syncing physical machines with their digital counterparts. In addition, it generates physical data from equipment, which MTS uses to gain information on the smart factory processes. It analyses equipment and process flow data with knowledge to predict machine issues and alerts operators to schedule maintenance. It also provides insight of the most optimized path to run the production process, eventually helping in the design of enhanced smart manufacturing solutions.

We are the only smart equipment solution provider that use industry physical data instead of big data, which helps us deliver far greater value to customers

The SMDAP platform is also Industry 5.0-ready, offering AIoT, lights-off manufacture, automation, digital twin technology, cyber physical systems, and edge computing solutions to manufacturers. The unification of these solutions ultimately leads to throughput maximization and cost optimization.

Perfected for Semiconductor Manufacturing

While MTS’ solutions deliver top-notch cost and output efficiencies across industries, they stand out in the value they add to semiconductor device manufacturing. MTS’ Industry Smart Solution 4.0 Plus brings cutting-edge manufacturing solutions for integrated device manufacturers (IDM) and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies. It includes smart machines for back grinding, laser groove, molding, wafer and singulation saw, dices and wafer sort— “known good die” (KGD) in integrated chip design and IC final testing, and laser & mechanical microdrilling machine for printed circuit board assembly.

The advanced solution removes all equipment capability constraints or factors that limit its functionality. In terms of units per hour, product size or layer, wafer thickness, warpage control, and yields, the solution confers immense ROI for semiconductor device manufacturers—a minimum of 460% and an average of 736% in the first year of implementation.

Tech-Propelled Value Addition

To ensure greater returns, MTS goes beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, as each manufacturing facility presents unique production demands. This is where its digital twin technology plays a vital part in adding value. MTS Digital Twin combines physical, hybrid, and derived data from production equipment to create a virtual model that mirrors the equipment status in real time and precisely predicts equipment downtime. It ensures high-quality production through synchronized auto-compensation and helps prevent machine downtime with auto-recovery features.

The digital twin also has the ability to coordinate factory processes to improve production performance. It pools smart factory data to predict the specifications of the output products. This powerful combination of physical assets and digital twin defines MTS’ innovative smart solution structure.

It helps schedule maintenance, control key input compensation, and maximize throughput OEE with zero machine downtime and zero parts-per-million quality defect (DPPM).

To further the competencies of the digital twin, MTS has built a pipeline of smart solutions that are designed to interlink varied components of manufacturing to create a simulation-based digital version of the smart factory digital twin. This empowers manufacturers to gain heightened visibility and greater control over their production processes and helps increase shop floor productivity.

A Massive Gain for Manufacturers

The results of implementing MTS’ smart solutions are best represented by its advanced reliability programs. These include Capex Avoidance Program (CAP), Maintenance Avoidance Program (MAP), Energy Avoidance Program (EAP), Process Capability Avoidance Program (PAP), and Quality Defect Avoidance Program (QAP).

Through CAP, MTS ensures clients increase their throughput to 400%, with OEE reaching nearly 100% without investing in new production lines or plants. MAP forms the backbone of MTS’ excellent equipment condition monitoring abilities, courtesy of tech solutions that predict or diagnose equipment process control and material failure patterns. It ensures zero equipment downtime, reducing maintenance and repair costs by a massive 92%.

Taking into account the energy efficiency needs of companies, MTS’ EAP helps reduce power consumption by 47% for manufacturers without replacing existing equipment. MTS also shortens process cycles with PAP, improving cycle times by 62%. Through technologies like digital twins and smart sensors, MTS’ QAP helps enhance production quality with doubled yields.

These numbers speak volumes about the capabilities of MTS’ smart solutions. The resultant cost saving is in the millions, which is a massive gain for manufacturers.

An IDM company witnessed this immense ROI first-hand. Prior to implementing MTS’ smart manufacturing solutions, the company’s daily throughput was 1,200,000 units with 3,200 employees. Post implementation, the throughput increased to 4,500,000, with a concurrent reduction in workforce to merely 720. The result is a 45% decrease in the total manufacturing cost.

In another notable example, MTS prevented a rise in capital expenditure for a 5G chip manufacturer facing lower output in advanced integrated chip production. MTS resolved the issue with smart sensors, upgraded equipment with smart automation, quality auto-detection, and simultaneous auto-recovery of warpage, contamination, and contact resistance via edge computing. With this, MTS helped build a smart factory for the client with fully smart automation, centralized control, and auto-setup for robust data-driven manufacturing. Throughput increased by 285%, accompanied by zero downtime and reduced need for alarms assisted by production personnel.

Driven to offer more heightened operational competencies to clients across the globe, MTS has set up offices beyond Taiwan in Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, and the U.S. With a wide portfolio of smart manufacturing solutions and expertise of industry professionals, MTS is an ideal architect of smart factories of the present and future in the era of Industry 4.0 and beyond.