Advanced manufacturing for the disc drive industry

The disc drive industry has evolved over the last decade from the garage shop start-up environment of Silicon Valley to a sophisticated, high-volume, worldwide, world class manufacturing system. Advances in all aspects of the disc drive industry have been enormous. Although many other aspects of disc drive manufacturing have had significant changes and improvements, this paper will address only the mechanical assembly process. Advances in tooling, processes, automation, Information Technology, and Statistical Process Control, and their effects on Disc Drive production are discussed.