Patent ID: 6999831

Claim:
A method of managing a manufacturing process, in which a device is successively selected from a plurality of devices that can perform at least one process step, comprising: a first step for calculating a processing time required to process one lot for each step that can be processed with a manufacturing device; a second step for calculating the number of steps that can be processed with each manufacturing device, and the number of devices that can be used by each step; a third step for calculating a priority number for every combination of a manufacturing device and a step based on said processing time, said number of steps that can be processed and said number of devices that can be used; a fourth step for successively allotting one of lots scheduled to be processed to a manufacturing device that has a highest priority in a most updated order of priority, based on the number of lots to be processed by each step in a specified period; a fifth step for calculating a device load of said manufacturing device to which said lot to be processed is allotted in said fourth step; a sixth step for updating an order of priority by correcting said priority number calculated in said third step according to said device load calculated in said fifth step; a seventh step for determining the number of lots to be processed by each step with each manufacturing device when all the lots to be processed are allotted to corresponding manufacturing devices; and an eighth step for directing execution of a step to process an existing lot that can be processed by said step by successively selecting a manufacturing device that has a smallest accomplishment rate, which is a ratio of the number of processed lots to the number of lots scheduled to be processed by said step with said manufacturing device.