Symposium Keynote: “Gaining Competitive Advantage in Today’s Environment”
Steve James
Texas Instruments Dallas Wafer Fab Manager
Thursday, October 23
8:15-9:00 AM
Engineers, like many other professionals, flock to conferences like the ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness to share best practices with others in their field. Where else can they find new ways to drive improvements? As the manager of one of TI’s most successful older wafer fabs, Steve James will discuss how his factory has steadily gained a competitive advantage by employing best practices he has learned over the course of his career – many from some unlikely places. In his keynote, Steve will share initiatives he’s put in place that he has gleaned from other regions, industries and personal experiences including TI’s world-class 5S program and Blitzes based on Lean Manufacturing strategies.
About the Speaker
Steve James serves as Texas Instrument’s DFAB Wafer Fab Manager in Dallas. In this role, he manages more than 600 employees in the oldest operating wafer fab in TI. DFAB Wafer Fab manufactures 200mm and 150mm wafers in a clean room of approximately 125K square feet and produces more than 3,000 different Analog and Mixed Signal products on 15 different technologies and several hundred process flows.
Since joining TI in 1987, Steve has served in a variety of manufacturing and engineering roles including Fab Engineering Manager, Product Engineering Manager and Device Analysis Manager. Early in his career, Steve achieved the rank of Distinguished Member, Technical Staff in TI’s Technical Ladder for pioneering yield analysis and failure analysis methods.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Virginia.
