Lean Techniques in a Fabless Workflow

This event constists of two parts: First a presentation and second an interactive session. The interactive session is limited to 24 participants and sign-up is required (for the interactive session only).

Presentation: Using Lean techniques in a Fabless Research Workflow (13h15-14h15)
Lean is a collection of concepts and techniques that originated in the Japanese automobile industry but gained widespread adoption in many branches of manufacturing. Its philosophy revolves around reduction of ‘waste’ and continuous improvements, and translates itself in a more motivated and empowered workforce. Principles of Lean have gradually found their way into project management, notably under the umbrella of ‘Agile’, most notably in software development and startup environments. One of the last places where Lean is adopted is in Research, both academic and corporate. This is contradictory, since the principles of Lean should be extremely compatible with the scientific method. This presentation will introduce the concepts and basic principles of Lean and contrast them with traditional project management.
 
Interactive Session: The Fab game (14h30-18h)
After the presentation, we will apply the LEAN techniques in a specific research flow, taken from the world of Silicon Photonics. In this field, researchers doing a PhD often rely on an external foundry to fabricate chips. This creates bottlenecks in bringing their ideas all the way to a published papers. Through a series of simulation games, we will see ow we can apply the techniques to improve our workflow.

About the Speaker: Wim Bogaerts is a full professor in the Photonics Research Group of Ghent University and IMEC, Belgium. He specializes in silicon photonics, complex photonics integrated circuits and their design, and programmable photonics. Wim Bogaerts studied engineering (applied physics) in Ghent, and did a PhD in the Photonics Research Group of Ghent University-IMEC, building the design and technology foundations for IMEC's first silicon photonics technology platform on 200mm CMOS tools. This led to collaborations with tens of partners, growing into a silicon photonics multi-project-wafer service in IMEC, eventually known as ePIXfab. To enable the design of these photonic chips, Wim and his colleagues developed the software package IPKISS, a parametric design framework for photonic circuits.
In 2010, Wim became Professor at Ghent University, specializing in advanced design methodologies for integrated photonics, tackling the challenges that form the design gap for silicon photonics. With the growing industrial interest in silicon photonics, this know-how became ever more relevant for a larger community. In June 2014, he co-founded Luceda Photonics, a Ghent University - IMEC- VUB spin-off to bring the IPKISS software and other advanced design tools to the rapidly growing photonics market.
With Luceda Photonics successfully established in the Integrated photonics market, Wim returned in 2016 to his fundamental research interest, establishing a research activity in large-scale silicon photonics and programmable photonic circuits. On this topic he received the ERC consolidator grant PhotonicSwarm. He also teaches design and technology of photonic integrated circuits, both at the level of the M.Sc. program in Ghent, as in specialization courses. He is a very strong adept of Agile and Lean philosophies, with a passion to apply them to the peculiar ecosystem of academic research. He holds a black belt in lean. He is a member of IEEE, OSA, SPIE and the Scrum Alliance, as well as a travelling lecturer of the Optical Society (OSA).