Assessment mechanism for the autonomous maintenance and outsourcing maintenance of equipment: a case study of HannStar Board Corporation Taiwan

HannStar Board Corporation is a listed and over-the-counter printed circuit boards (PCB) production company. Its main production unit is the Jiangyin Manufacturing Plant located in China. PCB manufacturing is a complicated process that involves numerous production equipments. Throughout the depletion of equipment service life, considerable repair expenses may incur, thus making maintenance necessary. For optimising the maintenance option decision, HannStar Board Corporation assigned the newly established maintenance assessment committee to perform a systematic assessment of the equipment. Outsourcing maintenance and autonomous maintenance are key strategies to reducing costs and increasing profits. This case study introduces the assessment process of the maintenance strategies for three equipment, namely the exposure glass of the exposure systems for the 2B inner layer exposure machine upper curved mirror, and the HDI laser drilling machine to provide an in-depth understanding of the maintenance strategies for PCB manufacturing equipment and the incurred expenses and costs. On the basis of the transaction cost theory, this study incorporated factors for consideration for various value chain strategies to provide a comprehensive assessment and determine the optimal equipment maintenance strategy.