Veco is the world leader in manufacturing customized precision parts via electroforming, photo-etching and laser cutting. Electroforming is a method to produce metal parts by the precise deposition of metals onto patterned substrates. Its uniqueness is that you can grow metal parts atom by atom, providing absolute accuracy and high aspect ratios. Once you have discovered the benefits of electroforming, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. What if you could produce, atom by atom, stress- and burr-free precision metal parts with micron scale accuracy? It would give you the opportunity to raise the bar on precision, tolerance, cost-effectiveness and the capability to withstand higher temperatures.

One of the drawbacks of this technology is that the quality of the final product can — for the most part — not be detected until the whole process is completed. However, the quality is mainly determined by the lithography, which is the first step of the production process. For this reason, it is important that production lead times are short: The shorter the lead time, the earlier the feedback, and the earlier they know whether the lithography is performing within their capability window.

Veco had adopted Six Sigma as the tool to improve its process performance, both internal and external towards customers and suppliers. But after a while they had reached a plateau in their improvement efforts with Six Sigma.

This is when they turned to process mining. By using process mining in combination with their Six Sigma approach, they were able to further cut the lead time of their core production process in half. They received the Process Miner of the Year 2016 award for their achievement.