History 2002: Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics Lays Off 1,600 Workers

After the acquisition of Quantum by Maxtor 2 years ago, it was expected that Quantum’s exclusive sub-contractor for all its drives, namely Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics would have to prove that it was capable of manufacturing HDDs in the same conditions as Maxtor.

Clearly, this hasn’t been the case, since:

1. All IDE devices are now produced in Maxtor’s cell-based plant in Singapore,
2. MKE now only manufactures enterprise units for its partner in a highly-automated factory in Japan.
3. It has just announced the lay off of 1,600 employees out of 2,200 in its giant plant located on the far end of the island of Singapore (a facility, incidentally, that MKE refused to allow us to tour).

The remaining 600 employees will continue to make FDB motors for HDDs. MKE’s original concept of “automate everything” for the assembly of IDE HDDs – this is what the manufacturer was trying to hide from us – has thus come to fruition.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 173 on June 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.