ABSTRACT
Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts, is the world’s second largest computer manufacturer, in dollar revenues, and is the world’s largest manufacturer of minicomputers. The company has two European Software Manufacture and Distribution Centres at Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Mervue in Ireland. This chapter focuses on changes to the Ayr site’s ‘product charter’ and the implications of these changes for the management and workforce. The change involved a move from the final assembly, test and customization of minicomputers to the volume manufacture of small and personal computer systems. For the workforce, this product change involved a shift from a lengthy and complex work cycle to short cycle assembly work. Digital Equipment Corporation was founded by Kenneth Olsen in 1957 with three employees in an old converted wool mill in Maynard, Massachusetts. Digital announced in March 1984 its intention to stop importing personal computers from America and to make them in Ayr for British and European customers.
