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Sub-Material Processing#

Estimated time to read: 5 minutes

The processing and tracking of Sub-Materials needs to follow procedures so that nothing deviates from its planned or expected path.

Sub-Material Processing is only possible when a main Material has Sub-Materials and the needed configurations are set at the Step and Resource.

Moreover, a Sub-Material is part of a main Material, and the Sub-Material Processing working mode, besides reducing Cycle Time, optimizes the handling of Materials throughout the process.

The image below shows Materials held in a PCB magazine, and each Material has Sub-Materials attached to it:

Screenshot showing a PCB magazine with sub-material processing settings.

This document will guide you through the actions required for Sub-Material Processing in Critical Manufacturing MES.

Overview#

Critical Manufacturing MES implements a hierarchical Material and Resource model. When it comes to tracking Material with Sub-Materials there are different possibilities which are determined by two properties:

  • Step
    • Sub-Material Track State Depth - defaults to 0 (main Material only) and determines the desired tracking depth.
  • Resource
    • Enable Sub-Material Tracking - defaults to false and determines whether the immediate Sub-Material level can be tracked in and tracked out individually.

To better illustrate the usage of these two properties, some scenarios are presented here. In all the scenarios below, the color code should be interpreted as shown in this table:

Entity Color Description
Material queued Queued
Material inprocess In Process
Material processed Processed
Resource resource Main
Resource subresource Sub
Resource subsubresource Sub-Sub

Table: Sub-Material Tracking Legend

Info

In the examples below, the case of In-Step Sampling for Sampling Pattern where a Sub-Material is marked as Skipped is not considered. When a Sub-Material is marked as Skipped, that Sub-Material cannot be tracked in or tracked out at the Step.

Scenario Summary#

Scenario Sub-Material Depth Sub-Material Track State Depth Enable Sub-Material Tracking Sub-Resource Configuration
1 2 0 False No Sub-Resources
2 2 1 True No Sub-Resources
3 2 1 True 2
4 2 2 True 2

Table: Summary of Sub-Material Tracking Scenarios

Note

Scenario 3 - All Resources allow Sub-Material tracking.

Scenario 4 - Only the main Resource allows Sub-Material tracking.

It is important to mention that Critical Manufacturing MES supports up to three Material depth levels: 0,1, and 2. This is, level 0 is used for the main Material, level 1 for the Sub-Material, and level 2 for the Sub-Sub-Material.

A good example of this is the Semiconductor industry in which a lot is processed at level 0, wafers from this lot are processed at level 1, and if needed, each die of the wafers can be processed at level 2.

Scenario 1#

Sub-Material Depth Sub-Material Track State Depth Enable Sub-Material Tracking Sub-Resource Configuration
2 0 False No Sub-Resources

Table: Sub-Material Tracking Scenario 1

In this case, because the Resource does not allow Sub-Material tracking, only the main Material is tracked in and tracked out regardless of the Step state depth value.

Sub-Material tracking Scenario 1

Scenario 2#

Sub-Material Depth Sub-Material Track State Depth Enable Sub-Material Tracking Sub-Resource Configuration
2 1 True No Sub-Resources

Table: Sub-Material Tracking Scenario 2

In this case, the Resource allows Sub-Material tracking. The Step state depth defines tracking until level 1, so each Sub-Material until level 1 needs to be individually tracked in and tracked out.

Sub-Material tracking Scenario 2

Scenario 3#

Sub-Material Depth Sub-Material Track State Depth Enable Sub-Material Tracking Sub-Resource Configuration
2 1 True 2

Table: Sub-Material Tracking Scenario 3

Note

All the Resources of this structure allow Sub-Material tracking.

In this example, each Material and Sub-Material needs to be tracked in and tracked out individually.

Sub-Material tracking Scenario 3

Scenario 4#

Sub-Material Depth Sub-Material Track State Depth Enable Sub-Material Tracking Sub-Resource Configuration
2 2 True 2

Table: Sub-Material Tracking Scenario 4

Note

All the Resources allow Sub-Material tracking.

In this example, the Step defines a tracking depth of 2, and all the Resources within the structure support Sub-Material tracking. This means that after the main Material is tracked in, the Sub-Material (level 1) must also be tracked in at the Sub-Resource. After that, the Sub-Sub-Material (level 2) is tracked in at the Sub-Sub-Resource because its main Material was tracked in at the Sub-Resource 1.2.

Sub-Material tracking Scenario 4