Seagate’s History in Singapore

Seagate Technology was incorporated in California in November 1978 and its business commenced in 1979. After an extensive search for another site, Singapore was chosen in 1981 as its only overseas manufacturing arm. It leased a factory space from Jurong Town Corporation so that production at the subsidiary, Seagate Technology Singapore Pte Ltd, could start swiftly. The EDB was promoting foreign investments at that time and granted tax incentives to Seagate Technology as well as a 10-year pioneer-status. The Seagate Singapore plant was established in July 1982 at Block 12, Kallang Bahru Industrial Estate, where initially printed circuit board assemblies were ‘burned in’ and tested, then magnetic head arms were assembled to. The focus was to manufacture Winchester magnetic rigid disc drives, used in small computers, word processors and intelligent terminals.

In end November 1983, Seagate Singapore built another factory in the Kallang Bahru Industrial Estate for the new assembly line. 500 operators were trained before the production line began. In the following month, the company assembled the entire Winchester disk drives.

In 1984, Seagate had its new flatted factory at the Woodlands East Industrial Estate. It leased the Woodlands factory for 30 years with an option for another 30 years extension. Seagate chose to site its research and development facility at the Science Park as the environment provides symbiotic links with the University and a competitive atmosphere to encourage original thought. The R&D team focused on automated systems to increase productivity of its printed circuit boards (PCBs) and disk drive plants. Seagate was among seven companies to move into the Science Park, the focal point of R&D. By August 1984, Seagate produced 3,000 disk drives per day, comprising both half-height and full-height disk drives. Subsequently, there were expansion programmes for Seagate’s factories and additional staff were needed. In addition, Seagate produced its fourth product in Singapore, the ST-4026 disk drives.

In 1985, Seagate had more than 5,000 employees in two factories, one a disk drive plant in Kallang and a PCB assembly plant in Senoko. The Kallang operation had more than 4,000 staff. Both plants operated at 24 hours a day. The recruitment of technical personnel for Seagate’s second PCB assembly plant also in Senoko, was stepped up too. This new PCB plant employed Surface Mount Technology (SMT) in the assembly. In the following year, Seagate looked for 200 employees for its third shift.  Seagate was among the 20 companies to occupy first 16 starter-units at the Science Park adjacent to NUS Kent Ridge campus. Seagate had facilities in Bangkok, Thailand and Manila, the Philippines for sub-assemblies only.

Reference NewspaperSG (nlb.gov.sg)