http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/isic/rss Recent eScholarship items from Information Storage Industry Center Sat, 16 May 2026 06:48:12 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6z6703z5 <p>Making goods evolved over several centuries from craft production to complex and highly automated manufacturing processes. A companion paper by R. Jaikumar documents the transformation of firearms manufacture through six distinct epochs, each accompanied by radical changes in the nature of work. These shifts were enabled by corresponding changes in technological knowledge. This paper models knowledge about manufacturing methods as a directed graph of cause–effect relationships. Increasing knowledge corresponds to more numerous variables (nodes) and relationships (arcs). The more dense the graph, the more variables can be monitored and controlled, with greater precision. This enables higher production speeds, tighter tolerances, and higher quality.</p><p>Changes in knowledge from epoch to epoch tend to follow consistent patterns. More is learned about key classes of phenomena, including measurement methods, feedback control methods, and disturbances. As knowledge increases,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6z6703z5 Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000 Bohn, Roger E. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93z4b3gv <p>Various industries are marked by rapid technological change and increasingly global competition. We explain how such developments provide a context for "Red Queen" competition, where organizational learning and competition accelerate each other over time. Arguing that competition stimulates organizational development, we predict that organizations experiencing a history of competition are less likely to fail. This implies that a strategy of technological differentiation generates short-run survival advantages, but backfires over time as isolated organizations suffer from increasing rates of failure. Also, we argue that the Red Queen magnifies differences in competitiveness among organizations due to underlying differences in their propensities to learn, so that technologically leading organizations are especially strong competitors. This strength, paradoxically, makes technological leadership a hazardous strategy because technological leaders must compete against stronger... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/93z4b3gv Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 David G. McKendrick William P. Barnett https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6kn3d2gm <p>Setups determine downtime, capacity, product quality, and to some extent costs. As much as 50% of effective capacity can be lost to setups in some electronics assembly. In this paper we show that large reductions in setup time are possible for electronics assembly. We use a two-part approach. The first part consists of classic process re-engineering using “Single Minute Exchange of Dies” (SMED) concepts developed by Shigeo Shingo for metal fabrication. The second part uses a sophisticated factory information system, with hand-held wireless computers and barcode scanners, to further reduce setup times and increase setup accuracy. This two-part approach gave a reduction of about 86% in key setup times, plus labor savings, quality improvements and other benefits. One narrow measure of performance gave an order of magnitude improvement. Our results show that SMED is applicable well outside its traditional domains such as stamping and metal-working. We confirm that the seemingly... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6kn3d2gm Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Sheri Coble Trovinger Roger E. Bohn https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gn1m566 <p>The economic performance of many modern production processes is substantially influenced by process yields. Their first effect is on product cost. In some cases low yields can cause costs to double or worse. Yet measuring only costs can substantially underestimate the importance of yield improvement. We show that yields are especially important in periods of constrained capacity, such as new product ramp-up. Our analysis is illustrated with numerical examples taken from hard disk-drive manufacturing. A one percentage point increase in yields can be worth about 6 percent of gross revenue and 17 percent of contribution. In fact, an eight percentage point improvement in process yields can outweigh a $20 per hour increase in direct labor wages. Therefore yields, in addition to or instead of labor costs, should be a focus of attention when making decisions such as new factory siting and type of automation. The paper also provides rules for when to rework, and shows that cost minimization... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gn1m566 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Roger E. Bohn Christian Terwiesch https://escholarship.org/uc/item/631640tt <p>The hard disk drive industry has been under great cost pressures. Manufacturing has achieved very high levels of efficiencies and there is hardly any room for reducing costs any further by improving manufacturing. An area worth exploring is the design of the hard drives to further reduce the costs. Modular design helps in developing designs that will be amenable to cost reductions by identifying those components that could be designed independently of the rest of the product. In this paper we describe how modular design can accommodate technological innovations. We then relate it to the hard drive industry, and examine how hard disk drives have incorporated the technological innovations. We describe a model to determine a component’s and product’s modularity in a quantitative way. The index developed can then be used to allocate design resources in an efficient way.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/631640tt Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 R. Balachandra https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5zf5q453 <p>Rapid product lifecycles and high development costs pressure manufacturing firms to cut not only their development times (time-to-market), but also the time to reach full capacity utilization (time-to-volume). The period between completion of development and full capacity utilization is known as production ramp-up. During that time, the new production process is ill understood, which causes low yields and low production rates. This paper analyzes the interactions among capacity utilization, yields, and process improvement (learning). We model learning in the form of deliberate experiments, which reduce capacity in the short run. This creates a trade-off between experiments and production. High selling prices during ramp-up raise the opportunity cost of experiments, yet early learning is more valuable than later learning. We formalize the resulting intertemporal trade-off between the short-term opportunity cost of capacity and the long term value of learning as a dynamic program.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5zf5q453 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Christian Terwiesch Roger E. Bohn https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r25x0h3 <p>Singapore accounted for 45-50% of the global shipment of HDD units during the 1986-96 period, making it the single most important location in the world for HDD assembly since the mid-1980s. The continuing concentration of the HDD industry in Singapore comes despite the significant increase in wage and land costs relative to her regional neighbours since the late 1980s. How has Singapore managed to attract and retain such a large share of this industry¹s manufacturing base? This study discusses the origins of the industry on the island, and how it subsequently grew and transformed. It examines the development of an internationally competitive local supplier base, the government¹s important influence on the evolution of the HDD industry in Singapore, and how these two groups helped to attract more technologically advanced HDD value chain activities to the island.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r25x0h3 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Poh-Kam Wong https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bj0k0n3 <p>In this paper we developed a concept suggesting that initial entry conditions experienced by start-ups and diversified firms affect the behavior and fates of their products. Specifically, we predicted that in capital intensive industries, initial entry conditions confer advantages to diversifiers from related industries. As a result, these firms are likely to ship more models of products than start-ups. Products made by diversifiers are likely to have a longer market life span and exert a stronger competitive pressure than those made by start-ups. We tested these predictions on all products ever shipped in the worldwide optical disk drive industry, 1983-1999. The statistical analysis largely supported our theoretical predictions.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bj0k0n3 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Olga M. Khessina Glenn R. Carroll https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bd622d6 <p>China’s industrial policy for high-technology industries combines key features of the policies adopted elsewhere in East Asia: judicious opening to foreign investors and support for local firms.</p><p>However, unlike the developing economies of East Asia, China is a transition economy that already had a relatively well-developed, if somewhat dated, technology base of its own before its opening to outside investors at the end of the 1970s. Although the initial technology level of individual firms was low, a network of universities and government research institutes provided a strong foundation for future developments.</p><p>Like the other high-growth economies of East Asia, China has attracted foreign investment to rapidly expand its industries. But China has been able to leverage the enormous attractiveness of its domestic market to obtain technology transfers from its foreign investors on a scale that was unattainable in the regions other countries. Today, revamped... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bd622d6 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Greg Linden https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4957t4z8 <p>A decade of stagnation and financial crisis have discredited the heavy-handed industrial policies of Japan and Korea, particularly preferential allocation of capital to large companies. In contrast, the remarkable growth of specialized yet flexible computer and semiconductor firms in Taiwan has been supported by a very different type of industrial policy. Taiwan's "ITRI model" combines development initiative and engineering support from the quasi-governmental Industrial Technology Research Institute with commercialization by a mass of small to medium-sized firms in the adjacent Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park. The government provides technological support for both long-term development and specific innovative products, but it has exercised extreme restraint in the allocation of capital and sponsored the development of a thriving venture capital industry.</p><p>Some industries, however, have proved resistant to the ITRI model. A prime example is hard disk drives. Hard... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4957t4z8 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Gregory W. Noble https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3kd123k8 <p>Magnetic tape has long been used to backup computer information, customarily during dedicated, low use, 'overnight windows' when tape backup programs could be run without interfering with user applications. Over time these windows have shrunk to near non-existence due to the globalization of business through its use of the Internet and the World Wide Web. While tape system speeds have accelerated and tape capacities have increased, they have not keep pace with the demand for shorter backup windows, quicker restoration requirements, and the rapidly escalating volume of disk drive data being backed up. At the same time, the cost of PC disk drives ("ATA" computer interface) has dropped to be competitive with tape, and disk-to-disk (D2D) backup has become popular, particularly using the new Serial ATA (SATA) PC drives. A D2D system can run at the full speed of disk, and can use the higher capacity of PC disk drives (up to 400 Gbytes today), because backup is primarily serial data... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3kd123k8 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Gordon F. Hughes https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2z97x92f <p>Firms entering an industry de novo (start-up) and firms entering de alio (diversification away from another industry) differ in the initial entry conditions. In this paper I propose that the differences in resource endowment, previous experience, and structural flexibility between de novo and de alio firms at the time of entry have long-lasting imprinting effects on their innovation behavior. In particular, I predict that de novo firms exert greater efforts and achieve greater technological outcomes in product innovation than de alio firms. Furthermore, I argue that firm entry mode explains additional variance in firm innovative behavior, which is not explained by entrant-incumbent status alone. I find strong empirical support for these predictions when analyzing product innovation of all firms that ever participated in the worldwide optical disk drive industry, 1983-1999. I discuss the implications of my findings for the entrant-incumbent research in the literature... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2z97x92f Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Olga M. Khessina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vn6g6zq <p>This paper asks a basic question of organizational evolution: When and where will a new organizational form emerge? Contemporary organization theory proposes two answers. The first holds that formal institutions such as industry associations and standard-setting bodies will result in a taken-for-granted organizational form. The second answer contends that increasing organizational density (number of organizations in a population) will generate a legitimated organizational form. Our detailed historical case study of the disk array market and its associated technologies suggests each of these theoretical arguments is limited. Although we find significant collective activity in association-building and standard-setting among disk array producers, these have not yet led to an organizational form. Similarly, an observed trajectory of organizational density showing rapid growth followed by stabilization has not yet generated an organizational form. In our view, the... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vn6g6zq Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 David G. McKendrick Glenn R. Carroll https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1qw154f9 The Low-Profit Trap in Hard Disk Drives, and How to Get Out of It https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1qw154f9 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Bohn, Roger E. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1pj1z062 <p>When and where will a new organizational form emerge? Recent theory says that as the number of organizations using a particular external identity code first increases beyond a critical minimal level, the code becomes an organizational form. But how is an external identity code established? We assume that the identity code derives from the aggregated identities of individual organizations. Our core argument holds that when the identities of individual organizations are perceptually focused, they will more readily cohere into a distinct collective identity. We develop ideas about how two observable aspects of organizations might generate perceptually focused identities in a common market: (1) de novo entry and (2) agglomeration in a geographic place with a related identity. Using comprehensive data from the market for disk drive arrays, we analyze these ideas and an alternative by estimating effects of different specifications of organizational and product densities on rates... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1pj1z062 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 David G. McKendrick Jonathan Jaffee Glenn R. Carroll Olga M. Khessina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1fx4b134 <p>A 3 year study of global employment patterns has been undertaken for three major sectors of the hard disc drive industry. The investigation shows the shift away from high cost centers to mainly Asian based low cost locations and the movement within Asia to find lower overheads or preferred centers of production.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1fx4b134 Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Allen Hickman https://escholarship.org/uc/item/18x3r4fm <p>This paper investigates how the structure of market demand affects the nature and extent of competition over consumer subgroups in the market. It develops an analytic model to examine how the satisfaction of consumers¹ requirements and the relationships between consumers¹ preferences interact to affect competitive interactions. The model, tested using simulation, reveals demand-side influences on the emergence of three distinct competitive regimes: isolation, in which technologies do not interact throughout the course of their evolution; convergence, in which technologies evolve to compete head-on for the same consumer groups; and displacement, in which one technology cedes dominance of its home market to its rival. The model highlights the critical role played by price in influencing technology displacements and sheds some new light, supported by empirical data from the disk drive industry, on the important phenomenon of disruptive technologies.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/18x3r4fm Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Ron Adner https://escholarship.org/uc/item/10m6g3ff <p>Many high-tech industries are shifting their focus from minimizing time-to-market to minimizing time-to-volume. This puts the tail end of product development, the production ramp-up, in a critical position. This paper presents a case study of product transfer and production ramp-up in the hard disk drive industry. We provide a detailed description of the ramp-up period. By documenting detailed time-series data of several operational measures, we also shed light on the various forces that allow an organization to increase its production volume. Finally, the setting of our research allows us to study product transfer from development in the US to an off-shore production facility.</p> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/10m6g3ff Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Christian Terwiesch Kuong S. Chea Roger E. Bohn https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sh085cn The Hard Disk Drive Industry in the Philippines https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0sh085cn Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 Gwendolyn R. Tecson