CHAPTER 26 - Adding Value to the Electronics Industry

Summary

“Companies like to restructure during financial crisis. I was weary.”

— Cheong Yoke Yin, EEE Pioneer

IN THE 1980s AND EARLY 1990s, prior to the advent of mobile phones, pagers were popular with people on the move. When a page is made, the caller's telephone number will appear on the receiver's pager. The receiver can then call back from a landline. At that time, Motorola was the pager giant in the world. It commanded a whopping 85 per cent of global pager sales.

After graduation, Chan Lai Yee joined Motorola as a Research and Development engineer. The company was one of three winners of the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award. The United States Congress launched the award to inspire the pursuit of quality in American businesses. In 1986, Motorola introduced the Bravo numeric pager, the world's best-selling pager. Lai Yee's job was to refine the gadget to meet the consumers’ insatiable demand for pagers in various colors. Her colleague Lim Geok Yian was a process engineer there. They were working for Motorola in its heyday. Revenue soared from $14 billion in 1989 to $24 billion in 1993 after the company successfully transitioned from pagers to mobile phones. In August 2011, Google announced the acquisition of Motorola's mobile phones business under the Motorola Mobility Division. Today, Geok Yian has taken on a global role supporting Supplier Development in the Motorola Solutions Division.

Another big company with a lady pioneer's presence was Matsushita Electronics. Tey Week Lian designed their radio cassette recorders. In the 1980s, there was no CD, MP3 or smartphone. Music lovers turned to cassettes or records for their fix. After honing her design skills at Matsushita, she moved to Thomson Consumer Electronics, a French powerhouse. She designed all their televisions. Thomson moved its manufacturing to cheaper countries in 1994 but kept the research and development here. In 2001, Week Lian joined Fuyu Corporation, a subcontractor for Hewlett-Packard (HP). She designed the printer hardware for HP.

The lady NTI pioneers were spread out in various big names in the electronics manufacturing industry. Yang Hsao Hsien is a semiconductor veteran, having worked at Texas Instruments, Fairchild Semiconductor, National Semiconductor and STATS ChipPAC.