Fujitsu Aims to Cut Production Costs by 30 Percent, Japan Newspaper Reports

Sep. 8–TOKYO–Fujitsu Ltd. has launched a drive to slash manufacturing costs by 30 percent by the end of March 2006 as a way to maintain its domestic output ratio of information and telecommunications devices at the current level, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Monday.

The move comes in contrast to an industry trend of moving production to China, Southeast Asia and other parts of Asia.

The business daily quoted Fujitsu President Hiroaki Kurokawa as saying that Japan’s largest computer maker wants to “restore its competitiveness in the global market by rebuilding its domestic production base.” Under the plan, Fujitsu is adopting Toyota Motor Corp.’s cost-cutting and quality control measures at its key production sites for data communications equipment, the paper said.

By revamping its domestic output operations, Fujitsu aims to boost its productivity in making such products as servers, large mainframes, external data storage devices, and telecommunications equipment, so that these products can compete more effectively with Chinese- and Taiwanese-made goods, it said.

In order to curb the manufacturing costs of servers, Fujitsu will unify the basic design of its Windows- and Linux-compatible models, the report said.

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