Information Storage Industry Center

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.