COMPARATIVE MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT IN THE PERSONAL COMPUTER INDUSTRY

Abstract

The United States has been experiencing economic change in many ways, particularly in the form of manufacturing competition from Asia. East Asia is emerging as the dominant region of the world for the manufacturing of computers. Most, if not all, major companies in the personal computer (PC) industry have manufacturing facilities in Southeast Asia. These include U.S. firms such as IBM, Apple, Compaq, and Hewlett‐Packard, Taiwanese challengers such as Acer and Mitac, and Japanese firms such as NEC. Still, some PC manufacturing operations remain in the U.S. despite large differences in labor costs, cost of capital, and tax structures. Clearly, the establishment of a production facility is not a simple matter of cheap labor or being close to markets. The decision is a complex one involving many variables. This paper addresses some of these variables, and how PC companies deal with them, in considering manufacturing as an issue in corporate strategy.

Citation

DiDominico, P., Kartika, L. and Sibeck, G.P. (1996), "COMPARATIVE MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT IN THE PERSONAL COMPUTER INDUSTRY", Competitiveness Review, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 59-70. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb046337