Business

Thursday October 15, 2009

Hitachi facility to operate at full capacity by early 2010

By SHARON LING


KUCHING: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) expects its new aluminium substrate manufacturing facility here to reach full production capacity of 20 million units per quarter next year.

Hitachi GST acquired the facility from Western Digital Corp in July as part of its vertical integration plans and has been increasing production since commencing operations.

“We intended to quadruple production from the day we started. We are now very close to capacity and expect to reach it by early next year,” Hitachi GST Sarawak managing director Ali Dabier said yesterday.

He said the facility would supply 80%-90% of Hitachi GST’s aluminium substrate requirements for manufacturing desktop-class hard drives. “This is an integrated company so our product goes directly from Sarawak to our internal customers in Shenzhen, China, and San Jose, California,” he said after the facility was opened by Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Hitachi GST president Steve Milligan said the acquisition of the Sarawak facility was aimed at strengthening vertical integration to enhance product time-to-market and customer satisfaction.

“We had been looking for an opportunity to expand our business into substrate production. We were very pleased with the operations of the Sarawak team as well as the support of the state government that gave us significant confidence that it was the appropriate time to expand in terms of aluminium substrate manufacturing capability in Sarawak,” he said.

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