Texas Instruments in the Republic

Texas Instruments (TI) was set up in 1968 with a labour force of 4,000 working on three shifts but there were 200 vacancies and not on maximum capacity. Earlier on, from end 1966 till March 1967, Singapore’s industrial potential was studied by Texas Instruments’ top leaders. This was done by having meetings with local and American businessmen. The EDB also encouraged companies to set up in Singapore as a solution to a large surplus of unemployed workers and young school leavers. Since 1967, TI was granted export incentives.

TI used the Matter West Vocational School for job interviews and training lines before moving into a ready-made factory leased from the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) at the new Kallang Basin industrial Estate. In July 1969, Mr Goh Keng Swee officially opened the plant, TI’s second operation in Asia. The first was started in Tokyo in August last year. The reasons for coming to Singapore and beginning its production without delay are the availability of adaptable labour, a ready-made factory and a cooperative government. In about four months, TI built its workforce up to over 800 working in three shifts.

By February 1970, TI started its geophysical service division which produced maps and lend direct support to exploration work. This then became Geophysical Service International, making seismic map and earth record stations. This subsidiary of TI then signed at two-year contract with Shell Brunei to conduct seismic work in conjunction with oil exploration. By 1984, it was responsible for one third of all seismic surveying in Asia.

TI formed Texins Recreation Association in June 1972 for its employees to participate in sports and recreation. Besides that, TI produced a number of programmes such as “people effectiveness” programme, team involvement programme, supervisors training programme and various trainings as well as scholarship courses for its employees.

In March 1972, as Singapore reached full employment, firms here faced a shortage of workers. TI employed 3500 workers and manufactured integrated circuits, control products and transistor radios. In 1974 TI planned to open its plant in Kallang Basin, near Boon Keng Road on a land bought over from JTC.

TI Singapore exercised retrenchments as well as reemployments due several reasons including declining orders. Geophysical Service International also retrenched its staff. In mid-January 1975, TI laid off 500 of its employees at Kallang Place. In the same period, TI Inc. in Malaysia retrenched 500 workers but in March sent out letters to rehire about 80 workers who were retrenched. Datuk Lee San Choon, then Labour and Manpower Minister delivered a speech at Texas Instruments Malaysia Sdn Bhd in the Ulu Klang free trade zone about the reemployment of TI’s workers. In 1985, microchip maker TI pruned workforce by about 400, at its Bendemeer Road, set up in 1969, offering resignations as an option while the other plants in Bedok and MacPherson were unaffected.

In January 1977, TI introduced to Singapore three new educational toys revolving around the use of an electronic calculator. Two months’ time, TI opened its new training centre in 900 Bendemeer Road. This centre was officially opened by Mr Goh Chok Tong, the Senior Minister of State (Finance) on 21 September. In end 1978, TI agreed to purchase the plant and machinery belonging to Oberg Singapore, a die, mould and pattern maker. With the purchase, TI Singapore will be the group’s only base outside the US with a mould and die operation. This agreement promised long-term significance for TI’s operations in Singapore because the present capacity at the Oberg plant is not enough to fully meet the firm’s worldwide demands. Under the purchase agreement, TI had a 55-year lease on the machine shop, including a building and a site in Bedok.

In 1979, when TI planned to set up a factory in the Philippines, President Marcos instructed mountainous area to be cleared, near to the tourist city of Baguio. This was then made into export process zone. There were salary scale variations per month according to the country of operation: Filipino $78, Singapore $198, Taiwan $165, South Korea $312, Hong Kong $254.

In early 1980, TI was believed to be among the companies approached by the EDB to start a wafer fabrication plant in Singapore. In end March, TI set a regional training centre named the Asia Pacific Division (APD) Education Centre which conducted courses for customers and provided training facilities and beducational development programmes designed to meet the requirements of all Texas customers and staff. In 1981, TI introduced two new talking learning aids Speak & Read and Speak & Math as popular as the one released earlier, Speak & Spell.  

In 1985, there was increased demand foreign engineers with the embarkment of TI’s wafer diffusion project. TI was in volved in several exhibitions such as the Computa ’81, PERCOMP Asia ’82, PERCOMP Asia ‘83 and the Micros ’84.

Reference NewspaperSG (nlb.gov.sg)