Western Digital (WDC)

 

We believe that we have significant know-how, unique product manufacturing processes, execution skills and human resources to continue to be successful and have the ability to grow, as necessary, our manufacturing operations. To be competitive, we must manufacture high quality hard drives with industry leading time-to-volume production at competitive unit costs. We strive to maintain manufacturing flexibility, high manufacturing yields, reliable products, and high-quality components that we manufacture ourselves, while insisting that our suppliers provide high-quality components at competitive prices. The critical elements of our hard drive production are high volume, low cost assembly and testing, and establishment and maintenance of key supplier relationships. By establishing close relationships with our strategic component suppliers, we believe we access best-of-class technology and manufacturing quality. In addition, we believe that our sourcing strategy currently enables us to have the business flexibility needed to select the highest quality, low cost of ownership suppliers as product designs and technologies evolve.

 

Hard drive manufacturing is a complex process involving the assembly of precision components with narrow tolerances and thorough testing. The assembly process occurs in a “clean room” environment that demands skill in process engineering and efficient space utilization to control the operating costs of this manufacturing environment. Our clean room manufacturing process consists of modular production units, each of which contains a number of work cells.

 

We manufacture hard drives in Malaysia and Thailand. We continually evaluate our manufacturing processes in an effort to increase productivity, sustain and improve quality and decrease manufacturing costs. We continually evaluate which steps in the manufacturing process would benefit from automation and how automated manufacturing processes can improve productivity and reduce manufacturing costs.

 

We use our wafer fabrication facilities in Fremont, California and our slider fabrication facility in Bang Pa-In, Thailand, to design and manufacture a substantial portion of the heads and HGAs we include in the hard drives we manufacture.

 

We are currently expanding our head wafer fabrication facilities in Fremont, California and expect to complete the expansion in calendar 2009, which will provide us with adequate wafer fabrication capacity for the foreseeable future.

 

Following our acquisition of Komag, we also have media and substrate design and manufacturing facilities in Malaysia. We use these facilities to design and manufacture most of the media and substrates that we use in our products.

 

For an additional discussion of risks related to manufacturing, see Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

We believe that we have significant know-how, unique product
manufacturing processes, execution skills and human resources to
continue to be successful and have the ability to grow, as
necessary, our manufacturing operations. To be competitive, we
must manufacture high quality hard drives with industry leading
time-to-volume production at competitive unit costs. We strive
to maintain manufacturing flexibility, high manufacturing
yields, reliable products, and high-quality components that we
manufacture ourselves, while insisting that our suppliers
provide high-quality components at competitive prices. The
critical elements of our hard drive production are high volume,
low cost assembly and testing, and establishment and maintenance
of key supplier relationships. By establishing close
relationships with our strategic component suppliers, we believe
we access best-of-class technology and manufacturing quality. In
addition, we believe that our sourcing strategy currently
enables us to have the business flexibility needed to select the
highest quality, low cost of ownership suppliers as product
designs and technologies evolve.

 

Hard drive manufacturing is a complex process involving the
assembly of precision components with narrow tolerances and
thorough testing. The assembly process occurs in a “clean
room” environment that demands skill in process engineering
and efficient space utilization to control the operating costs
of this manufacturing environment. Our clean room manufacturing
process consists of modular production units, each of which
contains a number of work cells.

 

We manufacture hard drives in Malaysia and Thailand. We
continually evaluate our manufacturing processes in an effort to
increase productivity, sustain and improve quality and decrease
manufacturing costs. We continually evaluate which steps in the
manufacturing process would benefit from automation and how
automated manufacturing processes can improve productivity and
reduce manufacturing costs.

 

We use our wafer fabrication facilities in Fremont, California
and our slider fabrication facility in Bang Pa-In, Thailand, to
design and manufacture a substantial portion of the heads and
HGAs we include in the hard drives we manufacture.

 

We are currently expanding our head wafer fabrication facilities
in Fremont, California and expect to complete the expansion in
calendar 2009, which will provide us with adequate wafer
fabrication capacity for the foreseeable future.

 

Following our acquisition of Komag, we also have media and
substrate design and manufacturing facilities in Malaysia. We
use these facilities to design and manufacture most of the media
and substrates that we use in our products.

 

For an additional discussion of risks related to manufacturing,
see Item 1A of this Annual Report on
Form 10-K.

 

 

We believe that we have significant know-how, unique product manufacturing processes, execution skills and human resources to continue to be successful and have the ability to grow, as necessary, our manufacturing operations. To be competitive, we must manufacture high quality hard drives with industry leading time-to-volume production at competitive unit costs. We strive to maintain manufacturing flexibility, high manufacturing yields, reliable products,

 

We believe that we have significant know-how, unique product manufacturing processes, execution skills and human resources to continue to be successful and have the ability to grow, as necessary, our manufacturing operations. To be competitive, we must manufacture high quality hard drives with industry leading time-to-volume production at competitive unit costs. We strive to maintain manufacturing flexibility, high manufacturing yields, and reliable products, while insisting that our suppliers provide high-quality components at competitive prices. The critical elements of our hard drive production are high volume, low cost assembly and testing, and establishment and maintenance of key supplier relationships. By establishing close relationships with our strategic component suppliers, we believe we access best-of-class manufacturing quality. In addition, we believe that our sourcing strategy currently enables us to have the business flexibility needed to select the highest quality low cost of ownership suppliers as product designs and technologies evolve.

 

Hard drive manufacturing is a complex process involving the assembly of precision components with narrow tolerances and thorough testing. The assembly process occurs in a “clean room” environment that demands skill in process engineering and efficient space utilization to control the operating costs of this manufacturing environment. Our clean room manufacturing process consists of modular production units, each of which contains a number of work cells.

 

We manufacture hard drives in Malaysia and Thailand. We continually evaluate our manufacturing processes in an effort to increase productivity, sustain and improve quality and decrease manufacturing costs. For example, during 2002, in response to an increase in demand and to capitalize on the local supplier base, we completed the acquisition of a