The Scheduling Planning with Discrete Event Simulation Based on a Fuzzy Set Theory in a Semiconductor Fab Construction Engineering

In this paper, we propose a methodology integrating discrete event simulation based on the fuzzy set theory to solve the scheduling planning problem for construction operations in a new semiconductor building. Unlike traditional construction scheduling approaches that only cope with quantitative data, fuzzy set-based methods provide proper instruments for expressing planners’ linguistic terms to determine the level of factors that affect the construction scheduling planning. A proposed scheduling planning procedure in modeling construction simulation system that applies the fuzzy logic and the fuzzy clustering algorithm is presented here. The objective aimed to achieve is to reduce the construction duration of a new fab on the uncertain and elaborate construction operations. An example is given to illustrate the proposed scheduling planning procedure and compares it with the scheduling planning results obtained by other existing approaches under evaluation criteria. It is our hope that the proposed discrete event simulation incorporated into fuzzy approaches from this study can assist semiconductor fab builders to deal with both quantitative and linguistic factors in improving the overall performance of their construction engineering.