Executive Summary
Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) is a global semiconductor manufacturing company, with facilities in Ireland, the Philippines, and the US. ADI was founded in 1965 by Ray Stata and Matthew Lorber as makers of amplifiers and converters. Their first product was the Model 101, which was a “general-purpose operational amplifier.” In the next 50 years, Analog Devices grew to be one of the major players in the semiconductors (and related devices) industry with revenues of $2.99 billion in 2011. With their main source of revenue coming from the industry-leading production of analog and digital integrated circuits such as: ICs, DSP ICs, SLIC, SPLICs. These products detect and measure information of ‘real-world phenomena’ (i.e. – temperature, images, sound, etc.) and convert the signals into a digital form. Furthermore, this information could be converted again to analog form to be stored and manipulated in what is known as the ‘real-world signal processing.’ These chips eventually end up in high-tech products including: medical instruments, communications gear, computers, and electronic devices. Even as ADI products lead the industry, it is still a competitive market with intense competition coming from companies like – Texas Instruments, DSP Group, Skyworks, and Microsemi. The case study dealing with Analog Device spans from 1983 to 2001. During this period of ADI’s history, there were impactful changes in upper management (and management styles), in an effort to shift their business strategy and the ways to measure performance. Starting from their slow period of growth during the early ‘80s and the hiring of Art Schneiderman as Vice President of Quality and Productivity Improvement in 1986; the case ends with their stagnant performance in the early 90s and their improved performance in 2001 following the resignation of Schneiderman in 1992.
Problems and Issues - Overview
The issues that ADI faced took place over 15 years, with two distinct phases....