Idle Equipment and Production Bottlenecks from Contamination and Purity Failures

$150K-$600K annually from lost research productivity, extended timelines, and potential grant deadline misses • $2,000-$5,000 per production halt (equipment idle cost at $500-$1,000/hour × 4-8 hours typical hold time) • $200K-$800K annually from experiment delays, repeated runs, and lost research funding milestones

Analyst manually tracks incoming chemical batches in Excel; compares test results to supplier spec sheets; escalates via email and phone calls; production team makes manual hold/rework decisions via team meetings • Cost controller collects wafer yield data from fab, manual scrap reports, and equipment logs; compiles into Excel for downtime and material cost analysis; reports are generated post-event (typically 3-5 days later) • Cost controller manually pulls downtime hours from fab logs, equipment utilization reports, and spreadsheets; calculates lost throughput via Excel; estimates material waste via inventory system; reports generated weekly or post-incident