Patent ID: 8015040

Claim:
A method for implementing product randomization and analysis in a manufacturing environment, comprising: processing, at a computer, products for a plurality of lots, at process equipment, using a randomization technique for selecting each product in the lots, the processing performed in accordance with a process recipe; generating, at the computer, an operation identification record for each operation in the process recipe, the generating including mapping, for each operation, a slot identifier associated with a randomly selected product to a process variable identifier, a process tool, and the operation; defining, at the computer, slot groupings using slot identifiers for a product carrier of each of the plurality of lots; identifying, at the computer, product yield patterns by analyzing historical yields for each of the slot groupings; and determining, at the computer, the frequency of occurrence of one or more product yield patterns for each operation in the process recipe by analyzing product yields from the operation identification records corresponding to the plurality of lots.