Patent ID: 6996447

Claim:
A group management apparatus comprising: a plurality of inspection/manufacturing apparatuses arranged in a semiconductor production line; sensor units for acquiring maintenance information concerning maintenance target items of the respective inspection/manufacturing apparatuses; a plurality of inspection/manufacturing apparatus computers, each of which is connected to at least one of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses and controls operations of the at least one inspection/manufacturing apparatus connected thereto in accordance with operation conditions corresponding to said at least one inspection/manufacturing apparatus; and a management computer which is connected with the inspection/manufacturing apparatus computers through a communication line, said management computer comprising: a transmission/reception section to transmit and receive information to and from the inspection/manufacturing apparatus computers with respect to at least one of: each information item of the operation conditions corresponding to the respective inspection/manufacturing apparatuses, and the maintenance information from each said sensor unit; a change section to intensively manage the operation conditions set to the respective inspection/manufacturing apparatus computers as a group and to change the respective operation conditions of at least a selected plurality of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses as a group with respect to the at least one inspection/manufacturing computer corresponding to said at least a plurality of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses; a notification section to intensively manage the maintenance information from each sensor unit of each inspection/manufacturing apparatus as a group, to monitor the maintenance information of the respective inspection/manufacturing apparatuses in order to predict a problem, and to issue a warning at a time of occurrence of the problem; and a display section to display on a same display screen of a monitor device: (i) at least one of each said information item of the operation conditions of the respective inspection/manufacturing apparatuses, and each said maintenance information item, and (ii) an arrangement layout drawing of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses; wherein each of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses has a plurality of types of inspection functions; and wherein the change section of the management computer selects at least one of the inspection functions, and changes only the selected at least one inspection function when changing the operation conditions of said at least a plurality of the inspection/manufacturing apparatuses as a group.