Patent ID: 8185226

Claim:
A method of automatically controlling a process flow in a manufacturing environment, the method comprising: determining a plurality of sections of said process flow performed in said manufacturing environment by using a plurality of process tools for processing products, each of said plurality of sections corresponding to a group of interrelated processes; determining a maximum work in progress value for each of said plurality of sections on the basis of at least a section-specific characteristic and a characteristic relating to a production target value of said process flow; for each of the plurality of sections, comparing, in a control system, a current work in progress value of a respective section with a respective maximum work in progress value associated with said respective section to provide a comparison result; and controlling, using the control system, a flow of products to each of said plurality of sections by reducing priorities for releasing substrates from a subset of the plurality of sections into a subsequent section when said comparison result indicates that the current work in progress value of the subsequent section is larger than the respective maximum work in progress value associated with the subsequent section.