LOOK INSIDE AN HP FACTORY IN SINGAPORE …….

[Anonymous]

Inside an inkjet factory

(CLICK ON THE LIVE LINK BELOW AND SEE PHOTO’S )
A feel of the action at the unit of the world’s biggest printer manufacturer.

Of the technology that goes into an inkjet printer, over 70 per cent
lies in the ink cartridge… it is no longer just a receptacle storing
the ink. While the high-end corporate and production printers still use
separate ink wells, the bulk of the consumer inkjets tend to integrate
the print head with the ink wells.

The inkjet manufacturing unit of the world’s biggest printer
manufacturer, Hewlett Packard in Singapore, accounts for 80 per cent of
the cartridges that bear the HP stamp and gradually, since 1989, has
escalated its output to today’s 100 million per quarter, that is about
a million units a day.

It is HP’s most vertically integrated factory and interestingly ink
cartridges are now about the only printer products that the company
manufactures directly — every thing else is contracted out. Why?
Because the cartridge remains the most critical component, one on which
the reputation of the company rides.While integrated print cartridge manufacture is almost totally
automated, the plant that turns out the separate ink well types still
sees human intervention in many operations.

In one respect, both lines are
identical as this correspondent saw
during a recent sponsored visit to the facility: every single unit is
inspected and tested prior to dispatch. This might add some crucial
minutes to the production cycle, but it is one way (the only way, say
insiders) that HP ensures 100 per cent working of its products. In the
case of the separate ink well type, this involves visual inspection of
the print head under a microscope.The Singapore unit, which employs
3,200, also manufactures ink for the large format Indigo industrial
printers.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2008/06/09/stories/2008060950060200.htm

[Author]

June 12, 2008 at 10:54 AM