August 2009
Supplement
HBS Case Collection

The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)

Format:Multimedia
| Pages:1

Abstract

When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and reactive scheduling. Students use two of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's mainstream processes as a vehicle for analysis. The case describes a real situation in which upper management accepts an emergency order. By working through the impact on the production system, students should develop a feel for how shifting demand in a large factory that is structured as a job shop alters the demands on, and utilization rates of expensive capital equipment in a complex way. As bottlenecks shift, students can explore several alternatives, each with different costs and trade-offs. Students may also reflect on the true cost of providing the extraordinary service, and whether management properly takes the impact on operations into account when it makes customer commitments.

Keywords

Factories, Labs, and Plants; Disruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Cost; Cost Management; Business or Company Management; Time Management; Network Effects; Production; Hardware; Manufacturing Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

Citation

Shih, Willy C. "The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 610-702, August 2009.