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Abstract
The design and production startup of the IBM Personal System/2 L40 SX laptop computer was accomplished in under 13 months, or 7 months faster than the industry's typical development time. The speedup of the laptop stemmed from teamwork among 3 companies and the use of new computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing technology and electronic data interchange (EDI). The Plastics Technology Center (PTC) of Lexmark International Inc. helped IBM bring the new, lighter-weight, more powerful laptop computer to market in record time by bypassing the prototyping stage. PTC was assisted by Dow Plastics, the resin supplier, and Leap Technologies Inc., the plastics tooling and contract manufacturing services firm. PULSE 1725 engineering resin was used for the 2 mm-thick housing and cover parts. Dow provided manufacturing expertise and employed several analytical tools to ensure that acceptable parts could be produced quickly. PTC and Leap Technologies used EDI to communicate throughout the production of the laptop.