The Development of A World-Class Manufacturing Model: Evidence from Taiwan's IC Industry

• Main Authors: Wei-Ling Chen, 陳瑋玲
• Other Authors: Pao-Long Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20932658362996020372

博士 === 國立交通大學 === 經營管理研究所 === 92 === Taiwan’s IC manufacturing, accounting for 7.4% of global IC production value, ranks fourth in the world. The foundry, in particular, accounted for approximately 73% of the worldwide market share. Taiwan today has won the reputation of manufacturing epicenter for kinds of IC products. Clearly, the question arises as to why Taiwan is able to achieve such manufacturing excellence based on its existing OEM background. What are the capabilities associated to the manufacturing excellence? It becomes an important issue to be compressively discussed. More recently, an increasingly large body of research has emphasized the competitiveness of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Those researches put more focus on integral level such as industrial innovation, disintegration system, industrial cluster than individual like process technology, shop floor activity, and organization practices. Though valuable, it doesn’t seem to appropriately reflect to the nature of IC manufacturing practices, which are considered as a competitive weapon for achieving low cost, high quality, quick delivery and flexible production. With such a focus, by collecting data from the IC manufacturing industry, this study attempts to build a framework of world class manufacturing model. The AHP method is then used to identify key practices for enhancing industrial competitiveness. The findings indicate that Taiwan’s IC manufacturing model composed four manufacturing strategy, namely cost, quality, delivery and flexibility, and seven manufacturing practices, including process technology innovation, equipment utilization enhancement, quality control, automated information system, production planning, manpower training and subcontractor relationships. Finally, the difference of key manufacturing practices between Taiwan’s manufacturers and global leading fabs is further compared and analyzed. It is expected that the results would derive some theory and empirical guidelines for the researcher and the business for resource deployment and strategy planning.