Real-Time Predictive Failure Analysis - Pump Monitoring

Background
This semiconductor manufacturer utilizes over 200 cryopumps during manufacturing operations. Cryopumps represent a significant hardware investment and a critical process step in this manufacturer's operations, so keeping them running correctly is critical to efficient operations and maintaining a low scrap rate.

Challenge
The biggest challenge with the pump monitoring system project was to execute the project within a very limited budget. This included replacing an expensive third party monitoring system, increasing the percentage of pumps that were monitored, and building a system that was flexible enough to accomodate future requirements.

Results
This manufacturer used a small team of internal IT resources to replace the existing third party pump monitoring system with a Catalyst based solution saving over $12,000 per month and increasing the number of pumps monitored from 50% to over 75%.