29 July 1999: Japanese electronics manufacturers are going to skip summer breaks for their liquid crystal display (LCD) production plants to meet fast-growing demand.
Electronics giants have found it…
29 July 1999: Japanese electronics manufacturers are going to skip summer breaks for their liquid crystal display (LCD) production plants to meet fast-growing demand. Electronics giants have found it difficult to keep up with sizzling demand for LCDs as consumers are ditching cathode-ray tubes in favour of flat-panel displays for their desktop computers. Hitachi Ltd. has dropped a break of five to six days planned in mid-August for its Mobara LCD plant in Chiba Prefecture. Toshiba Corp. has cancelled the planned summer holidays between 25 July and 2 August and between 13-16 August for a Fukaya plant in Saitama Prefecture. Mitsubishi Electric Corp. is negotiating with its labour union on a plan to call off a 7-15 August summer break for Advanced Display, its joint LCD production venture with Asahi Glass Co. NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. have also given up summer breaks for their respective LCD production units. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. plans to bolster its monthly LCD production capacity to 289,000 10-inch panels from the current 170,000 at plants in Ishikawa and Toyama Prefectures when they are in an 7-16 August summer break. Sharp Corp., the largest LCD producer in Japan, does not have to tinker with its existing work arrangements where its LCD production lines have been set to operate without any break all the year round.