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Chapter 1. Industrial Evolution-Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?


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Entrepreneurship for Engineers











Mitsubishi Elec.









Total Profit (US$B)

Total Employees (1000)

Total Sales (US$B)







Mitsubishi Elec.













Mitsubishi Elec.

Figure 1.1 Comparison between major electric equipment manufacturers and electronic component manufacturers in Japan, in terms of total sales, employees, and proﬁt. (Data from Data

Stream, Japan, 1998)

As an introduction to this chapter, I describe my opinion on “Industrial Evolution,” that is, that

small high-tech ﬁrms will lead industries in advanced (matured) countries such as the United States

and Japan in the t wenty-ﬁrst century. Corporation size suitable in advanced countries is discussed

from historical, biomimetic, and organization viewpoints. Incidentally, “small business,” as deﬁned by

the U.S. Small Business Administration [2], is a ﬁrm with 500 or fewer employees and with an annual

revenue under $5 million. Therefore, small businesses encompass a large variety of companies.

1.1.1 Culture Transition

The earliest civilization in the world is believed to have started in mainland China around the Yangtze

River mor e than 20,000 y ears ago . I ndependently, civilizations star ted in I ndia ar ound the I ndus

and Ganges Rivers, and in the M iddle East (Mesopotamia) around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Around 3000 years ago, these cultures motivated a new civilization in Greece. Rome took the initiative

politically and economically and became the world power around the transition from bc to ad. Rome’s

place was taken o ver by Spain, Portugal, and the U nited Kingdom during the M iddle Ages. They

invaded many countries and expanded their colonial territories. With their economic resources, these

European countries also cultivated sophisticated arts and sciences, culminating in the R enaissance in

the ﬁfteenth century. Refer to Figure 1.2 for the geographical positions of these countries and areas.

After World War II, the U nited States became powerful because most of the industrial world

was decimated while the industrial capacity of the U nited States remained mostly unscathed. The

United S tates was able to supply the world with mass pr oduction of automobiles and electric

devices such as r efrigerators, washing machines, and TVs in the 1950s. H owever, in less than

30 years, Japanese manufacturing industries (in which the triple best sellers ar e the “3Cs ”—car,

cooler, and color TV) caught up to U.S. technologies, making Japan’s corporations the most profitable. This economic dynasty lasted only 10 y ears. The curr ent economic dynasties ar e S outh

Korea and Taiwan with their pr oduction factories in mainland China, which ar e fabricating digital electronic devices (laptop computers, digital cameras, cellular phones, displays, and printers).

“Made-in-China” products currently exceed 80% in the United States.

As a priv ate consultant, I r ecommend U.S. and J apanese companies wor k in the “O riental

Triangle,” that is, Tokyo–Taipei–Shanghai, which is pr esently the most pr oﬁtable combination

of pr oduct manufacturing. S ome Japanese companies opened factories in mainland China, but

many have not operated smoothly. There are two major r easons for this failur e: (1) language barriers, and (2) cultural diﬀ erences. When SARS ﬂ u spread through mainland China in 2000, one

Japanese company demanded that all executives in its Chinese subsidiar y return to Japan. During

their absence, the subsidiary became uncontrollable because of lack of directorship. If this Japanese

company had chosen a Taiwanese partner as an agent, the language and culture barriers would have

Industrial Evolution—Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?


Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

Russian Federation



North Paciﬁc





North Atlantic


Center angle




Middle east








South Paciﬁc


◾ 3

North Paciﬁc








South East




Indian Ocean

South Atlantic



South Paciﬁc


National Online Project

Antarctic Circle

Antarctic Circle

Antarctic Circle


Figure 1.2 Historical civilization of key countries/areas in the world. The position transition

follows from East to West.

been solved ﬁrst. The Taiwanese did not leave the mainland during the SAAS incident (a wor king

culture diﬀerence), leading to the continuous strong control of their factory.

I believe that the cultural, political, and economic key generally is to transfer from East to West .

This is analogous to the sun’s motion; sunrise is earliest in Eastern territories. I also believe that China

has just started activities as the ﬁ rst runner of the second round. The economic and political power

of mainland China is inevitably incr easing because they hav e the highest pr oduct manufacturing

capabilities. I do not know whether India will become an economic world power in the next decades,

but I do know that the United States will not be a powerful manufacturing country from now on. It

is obviously diﬃcult to mass produce goods in the United States due to high labor costs.

A s ymbolic e vent h appened i n m y h ometown o f S tate C ollege, Pennsylvania, i n e arly 2 005:

Murata Manufacturing Company closed its factory. Murata is the world’s largest manufacturer of

capacitors. This factory supplied 80% of the multilayer capacitors used in North America. Thou gh

demand is still rising due to the increasing electronics market, price reductions are also signiﬁcant due

to decreasing prices of electronics. The total sales (quantity times price) have not changed much due

to market saturation. This factory closing was incredible because it was almost automatic: there was

no manpower in the fabrication line. It had multiple tape-casting systems that could continuously

produce multilayer capacitors without direct labor. So, why was it closed? The former president of

Murata U.S. kindly explained it to me: “The manufacturing cost was already minimized, i.e., almost

equal to the raw material cost. However, labor for the product packaging, purchase order paperwork

and the raw material and product delivery is still expensive in State College or anywhere in the U.S.”

As a result, the factory was transferred to Asia, close to the raw material suppliers and assembly factories. Keeping a factory in the United States is almost impossible nowadays, with the exception of

software companies, which do not have signiﬁcant delivery costs like hardware companies.

It i s t ime fo r t he United S tates (and m aybe J apan) to s eriously c onsider h ow to t ransform

corporate or industrial structures. My solution: Industrial Evolution, that is, a paradigm shift from

large ma ss-production ﬁ rms to sm all h igh-tech en terprises. M ass p roduction h as a lready b een

taken over by Korea, Taiwan, and China.


Entrepreneurship for Engineers

1.1.2 Biological Evolution

As most readers know, life started in seawater. According to a discovery by W. Schopf [3], the earliest known life on earth seems to be microbial algae around 3.5 billion years ago. Then , biological

evolution created various underwater organisms, including ﬁsh. Coelacanth is the famous ﬁsh link

between ﬁ sh and amphibians; it has four legs, which evolved from ﬁ ns. The evolution sequence

from ﬁsh to amphibian to reptile generally increased the body size. The ﬁnal form of these classic

reptiles is the dinosaur, some as large as 30 m long. Even primitive mammals, such as killer whales

(the largest water animals), do not exceed 10 m. There may be limits to the size an animal can be

on the earth. For example, nerve signals propagate between 1 and 120 m/s. If an animal gets too

large, the brain may not know what is happening in other parts of its body until it is too late.

Humans, modest-sized mammals with large brains, ev

olved, conquering other animals. Figure 1.3

illustrates biological evolution, that is, the animal transition over time. There appears to be a threshold of the animal siz e for sur vival. The dinosaur bears a r esemblance to a giant company such as

Enron or WorldCom. Control mechanisms, like ner ves in animals, do not wor k quickly enough

in such large ﬁrms. Smaller ﬁrms can react more quickly to changes in their business environment.

After World War II, the United States insisted Japan dissolve Zaibatsu industries (ﬁnancial conglomerates). In the 1970s and 1980s, the resulting midsized companies contributed to the Japanese

miracle of e conomic a nd te chnological suc cess. However, t he e conomic re cession i n t he 1990s

accelerated restructuring of Japanese industries; that is, consolidation back to giant conglomerates.

The major reason was to reduce the manpower and research budget by eliminating the overlapped

sections and divisions. In the cement group, Chichibu Cement and Onoda Cement merged ﬁ rst

to become Chichibu-Onoda Cement. Then, Chichibu-Onoda and Nihon Cement merged several

years ago to b ecome Taiheiyo Cement, which is now the largest cement company in Japan. The

merger o f M itsubishi K asei C orporation a nd M itsubishi P etrochemical re sulted i n M itsubishi

Chemical in 1994. This restructuring helped the Japanese economy recover. However, I can easily

imagine future Enron-type problems in these giant companies. It appears that Japanese industries

unfortunately are following U.S. industries with a lag time of around 15 to 20 years. Interestingly,

Korean economy/industries seem to follow Japanese practices with a 10- to 15-year lag.

1.1.3 Management Structure

30 m

Figure 1.4 illustrates the diﬀ erence betw een the corporate management str uctures of American and

Japanese industries [4]. The American structure resembles a regatta, where only the coxswain (president

Body Size





New Mammal


Ice Age

(16K years ago)


Figure 1.3 Biological evolution: animal transition as a function of age. Note that there seems

to be a threshold to animal size for survival.

Industrial Evolution—Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?

◾ 5

of the company) sitting in the back kno ws the destination, and the oarsmen (employees) just r ow

synchronously to the co x’s command. The oarsmen do not communicate with each other in general,

which is a suitable management structure for “lone wolf ”-type engineers. If the president does not command correctly, the regatta will quickly pile up . Similarly, the American economy changes signiﬁ cantly

depending on the U.S. president’s control. Further, American managers seem to prefer more power in a

larger company, which is illustrated in Figure 1.5a. This may be called a “whale” or “brontosaurus” type.

In contrast, Japanese company structure resembles a Mikoshi (portable shrine), where all carriers (employees) know the destination of the Mikoshi. Walking about, staggering left and right,

the Mikoshi does not go straight to t he de stination (major sh rine), but re aches t he de stination,

even if the ﬂ agman (president) standing on the Mikoshi falls down during travel. The employees

behave as a team with a patriotic loyalty to the Mikoshi, not to a person or a president. In a similar fashion, even if the Japanese prime minister changes, the Japanese economy will not change

much. In contrast to the whale type for the American managers, the Japanese managers prefer a

“sardine”-type s tructure ( Figure 1.5b). L oose c oupling b y m edium- a nd sm all-sized c ompanies

creates power similar to a b ig whale. But, unlike a w hale, a g roup of sardines can change shape

adaptively according to an enemy’s presence. Based on each sardine’s patriotic and synchronized

intention, these companies can make a Keiretsu (industry family tree).

A discussion similar to the aforementioned is found in an article titled, “The Fourth Economic

Crisis” by N. Makino [7] in which he uses an analogy to kabuki and musical theaters. The kabuki

attracts the audience by one or two key actors (ther e are no actresses in kabuki; only male actors),

which resembles American industries, such as Mr . Iacocca when he was at Chr ysler. In contrast,



Figure 1.4


Management structure difference between the United States (a) and Japan (b).







Figure 1.5 Difference between the United States (a and c) and Japan (b and d) in terms of the

company structure that managers desire.


Entrepreneurship for Engineers

the musical is an assembly of many minor actors and actresses, which is close to Japanese industry’s

structure. Exempliﬁed by the long-running musical Cats, the teamwork is brilliant, but not many

audiences remember the names of the actors and actresses (see Figure 1.5c and d).

When the United States was taking the lead in mass production during the 1960s and 1970s,

the “regatta” or “whale” control seemed to be the best way. However, if ﬁrm sizes become smaller

in the future, like high-tech entrepreneurial companies, by shifting mass-production lines to Asian

production c enters suc h a s K orea, Taiwan, a nd C hina, Mikoshi, o r s ardine-style m anagement,

could be employed in matured industrial countries. This is the paradigm shift I am suggesting in

terms of the corporate structure and management concept.

In conclusion, I su ggest the ideal style a nd structure for large product manufacturing ﬁ rms

in countries such as the United States and Japan (maybe 10 years from now). High-tech entrepreneurship will be the key to understanding Industrial Evolution, which may

1. Keep ﬁrms small- to medium-sized for strict corporate control

2. Keep small-scale production using diﬀerentiated technology

3. Outsource large-scale production using partnerships with developing countries’ companies

Basically, small, active entrepreneurial companies are a suitable solution for developed (matured)

countries such a s t he United States or Japan, with tight pa rtnership with developing countries’

large production companies. I am not claiming that this paradigm may be applicable to service industries such as banks and insurance companies, though service industries are outsourcing

back-oﬃce functions, including call centers and accounting. The focus here will be on high-tech

manufacturing industries.

1.2 Entrepreneurial Mind


Timmons a nd S pinelli i ndicated i n t heir te xtbook [ 6] t hat t he suc cessful en trepreneur n eeds

to have both creative aptitude and management skills. Figure 1.6 depicts the four categories of business people on these two scales: entrepreneur ,inventor ,manager/administrator, and promoter .Many

graduate students with science and engineering backgrounds may be eligible to be inventors, while

graduate students from management and administration departments may become managers or

administrators. However, note that in order to b ecome entrepreneurs or start their own companies, engineers should improve their management skills.

The following tests will help you decide where you are in the four categories and what skills

you need to enhance.






Management Skill

Figure 1.6 The four categories of business people: entrepreneur, inventor, manager/administrator, and promoter.

Industrial Evolution—Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?

◾ 7

1.2.1 Creativity Test

The personality and aptitude of researchers are, of course, important factors to the entrepreneur. Suppose

that you are an engineering student, or a young researcher in a manufacturing company; are you conﬁdent to continue your career path? Or, are you feeling a slump in your research and development (R&D)

activity, and are you more likely to be comfortable in a management position? Even I am still wavering

between the two desires—to be an engineer by believing in my creativity or a manager by expanding my

production capability. Example Problem 1.1 will help in assessing your creative aptitude.

Example Problem 1.1

Figure 1.7 on this page is a test picture with text randomly cited from an academic journal.

1. First, familiarize yourself with the contents and picture of the academic article in Figure 1.7

on next page for 60 seconds. Do not peek at the following page, which includes the Solutions.

Remember, this is your own personality check, before reading this textbook further.

After studying the picture for 60 seconds, you may turn the page.

Allowance: 60 seconds

Stop after 60 seconds, and move to the next page.

Figure 1.7

Picture to accompany the Creativity Test.


Entrepreneurship for Engineers

2. Second, answer True or False for the following sentences without looking at the previous page.

a. His name is Ohuchi.

b. His article is printed on p. 15 of an academic journal.

c. He has a moustache.

d. He wears a dotted tie.

3. Third, score 1 point for each correct answer according to the solution box on page 9.


Your Score


Really recognized


You can be a good engineer.

Some guesses


You are ﬁt to be a manager/sales engineer.

No idea


Abandon your dream to be an engineer.

People w ith en gineering aptitude g enerally remember t he w ritten c ontent ﬁ rst. I f you f ailed to

answer questions (a) and (b) correctly, then your aptitude in this direction is lacking. Recognizing

the moustache i s a lso e xpected of en gineering t ypes, b ecause it d irectly b elongs to t he p erson.

However, remembering the tie is relatively rare. You can see it only when you try to. This attention

to detail is one of the most important aptitudes to cultivate for innovative creativity.

This can be used to think of unconventional questions for a job interviewee. The following are

two I have used:

1. You climbed up a staircase a couple of minutes ago. How many stairs did you climb?

2. You must have seen the pedestrian traﬃc signal just before entering the company entrance.

Do you remember an illustration of a walking man lit up in blue? Was he walking toward

the left or toward the right?

For the second question, most of the interviewees recognize the illustration, but the answers diﬀer

remarkably. W hen t he a nswer is “I don’t remember,” we u sually ﬁ nd t he c andidate u nsuitable.

Even when the answer is correct, “left,” it may be a guess with a probability of 50%. This candidate

may be hired for a management position. Only when the correct answer arises from a c onﬁdent

memory will we hire the candidate as a professional engineer.

I occasionally use a similar test for hiring suitable people for the univ

ersity research center or the

company. Once you become a corporate oﬃ cer or a manager of y our new venture who is responsible for hiring research and engineering employees, you may need to create similar test questions.

Industrial Evolution—Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?

◾ 9


(a) F (b) T (c) T (d) F

His name is Uchino, not Ohuchi. An engineer is probably trained to read the page of the references. Page 15 should be remembered. With a normal careful observation, most engineers should

easily recognize baldness, moustache, beard, or glasses on the face. The design of necktie or

jacket is rarely remembered. But the person who correctly recognizes subtle details will be really

precious, and may discover new things. By the way, did you notice whether or not Uchino has a

handkerchief in his breast pocket?

1.2.2 Entrepreneurial Mind Test

Timmons and Spinelli [6] reported six dominant themes of desirable attitudes and behaviors for

the entrepreneurial mindset:







Commitment and determination


Opportunity obsession

Tolerance of risk, ambiguity, and uncertainty

Creativity, self-reliance, and adaptability

Motivation to excel

Example Problem 1.2

You can check your entrepreneurial mindset using the following questionnaire:













Are you willing to sacriﬁce your personal issues for the company’s sake? Y or N

Are you persistent in solving problems? Y or N

Do you like teamwork, rather than being a “lone wolf”? Y or N

Do you wish to share the wealth with all the people who helped you? Y or N

Are you familiar with customers’ needs and speciﬁcations? Y or N

Are you obsessed with your product performance/design improvement? Y or N

Can you tolerate minimum risk for your ﬁrm, including ﬁnancial debt? Y or N

Do you have conﬁdence in enduring and in resolving dilemmas or uncertainties? Y or N

Are you a nonconventional and open-minded thinker? Y or N

Are you a quick learner and chance-taker without fear of failure? Y or N

Do you have perspective and a sense of humor? Y or N

Are you aware of your weaknesses and strengths? Y or N

Questions 1 and 2 are concerned with commitment and determination; 3 and 4 with leadership; 5

and 6 with opportunity obsession; 7 and 8 with tolerance of risk, ambiguity,and uncertainty; 9 and

10 with creativity, self-reliance, and adaptability; and 11 and 12 are related to motivation to excel.

If you answered Yes to all questions, you are conﬁdent of your skills to start your new ﬁrm. The

number of No’s is proportional to the attitudes you lack as an entrepreneur. If you answered No to

Question 3 or 4, you may be a lone-wolf researcher who is better suited to working in a large ﬁrm.

If you answered No to Question 5, you may be suitable to be a university scientist, not a corporate

developer. If you d id not a nswer Question 7 i n t he a ﬃrmative, you should not start your own

company. The company founder, owner, or oﬃcer (CEO) should take joint liability/responsibility

and be a cosignatory to the company’s loans. Question 9 relates directly to Example Problem 1.1.

Creativity requires open-minded thinking—You can see it only when you try to. This is one of the

most important attitudes for a high-tech entrepreneur.


Entrepreneurship for Engineers

There are three steps to starting your own company: (1) collecting money (ﬁnancial resources),

(2) collecting people (human resources), and (3) keeping team harmony with a solid strategy (management development). Financial resources include bank loans and v enture capital; the entr epreneur needs to recruit money lenders with self-reliance, enthusiasm, motivation, and a solid business

plan, in addition to risk-taking willingness. The entrepreneur needs to persuade colleagues who

work with him or her as par tners to be as enthusiastic as they ar e. The entrepreneur also needs a

solid strategy in order to convince subordinates to work for this new start-up. Establishing the initial corporate culture for working together to solve problems for new product development is very

important for the founder. Rather than the autocratic and custodial management styles, the small

business manager should take the participative and collegial management styles, to keep harmony.

The details of the aforementioned description will be elaborated in Chapter 10, Section 10.4.

1.3 Background of the Case Study Used in This Textbook

A ﬁctitious company , M icro M otor I nc. (MMI) located in a ﬁ ctitious to wn, College P ark,

Pennsylvania, is used as the case study consistently in this textbook. Dr Barb Shay, a graduate from

the ﬁ ctional State University of P ennsylvania (SUP), founded this company after accumulating

a couple of patents on piez oelectric ultrasonic motors. B arb has a business and ﬁ nancial partner,

Mr. Lenny Chu, pr esident of Cheng K ung Corporation, Taiwan, who is also pr esident of MMI.

Cheng Kung has two factories—one inTaiwan and the other in Thailand—that manufacture piezoelectric actuators. A major customer of MMI is Saito Industries in Japan, a manufacturer of camera

modules for cellular phones. B arb believes in her company ’s technology dev elopment capability,

while Lenny has an ambition to expand his mar ket in the world with R&D suppor t from MMI.

Figure 1.8 lists the key players in this case study.

Barb Shay, PhD

- Vice President, Micro Motor Inc. (MMI)

The founder of MMI, known worldwide as an

active developer of piezoelectric actuators. Tries to

commercialize microultrasonic motors.

Lenny Chu, MS

- President of Cheng Kung Corporation, Taiwan, and

President of MMI

Cheng Kung is a mass-production ﬁrm of ceramic,

piezoelectric actuators, and transducers.

Kenichi Suzuki, MS

- International Division Manager, Saito Industries

Practical contact point with Barb Shay, who is in favor

of adopting the MMI components.

Toru Nakamura, BS

- R & D Division General Manager, Saito Industries

Responsible for deciding new component adoption,

and is neutral or more critical to importing American


Figure 1.8

Characters in the case studies for this book.

Industrial Evolution—Why Become a Small High-Tech Entrepreneur?

◾ 11

1.3.1 Background: Piezoelectric Multilayer Actuators

Piezoelectricity in a material was discovered by the famous brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie, who

ﬁrst examined the eﬀect in quartz crystals in 1880. By applying stress on a quartz crystal, the crystal

exhibited electric charge or voltage (direct piezoelectric eﬀect). As a converse eﬀect, subjecting the

material to an electric ﬁeld causes it to stretch or squeeze (induces strain). Refer to Figure 1.9 [5].

The Titanic sh ipwreck i n 1912 spurred on piezoelectric te chnology de velopment for u nderwater transducer applications. World War I accelerated technology development in order to search

for German U–boats in deep water. Dr. Langevin, a professor at the Industrial College of Physics

and Chemistry in Paris, who had colleagues including Albert Einstein, Pierre Curie, and Ernest

Rutherford, started experiments on ultrasonic signal transmission into seawater, in collaboration

with the French Navy. Using multiple small, single-crystal quartz pellets, sandwiched by metal

plates (original Langevin-type transducer), he succeeded in receiving the returned ultrasonic signal

from deep seawater in 1917. During World War II, a superior material, barium titanate (BaTiO3 )

ceramic was discovered, followed by lead zirconate titanate (PZT). PZT-based ceramics are still

the dominant piezoelectric materials at this time.

Piezoelectric c eramics c an b e de formed u nder a n applied e lectric ﬁ eld. This i s t he ba sis for

actuators for moving objects. Because the eﬃciency of piezoelectric devices is much higher than

the conventional electromagnetic motors and they can be miniaturized, applications are expanding dramatically, particularly for cellular phones.

One of the initial pr oblems with piez oelectric actuators was their rather high driv e v oltage

(300 to 1000 V). I n or der to achiev e a lo w driving v oltage (3 V driv e is r equired for cellular

phones), I invented a piezoelectric ceramic multilayer structure for actuator applications in 1978.

Figure 1.10 shows the structure of the multilayer actuator. By using a thinner layer of piezoelectric


Electric Field


Electric Field





Figure 1.9


(a) Direct piezoelectric effect, and (b) converse piezoelectric effect.



Polarization Direction

Internal Electrode


Figure 1.10


(a) Structure of a piezoelectric multilayer actuator, and (b) its appearance.

12 ◾

Entrepreneurship for Engineers

Calcined Powder

(Binder Mixing, Vacuumization)


(Slip Casting)

Green Sheet


(Electrode Printing)

(Lamination, Press, Cutting)

Green Chip

(Binder Evaporation, Sintering)

(External Electrode Printing)

Multilayer Device

Figure 1.11

Tape-casting fabrication process of a multilayer ceramic actuator.

ceramic, the drive voltage of the device can be pr oportionally reduced, because the electr ode gap

is smaller. Note that the electrode conﬁguration that provides the electric ﬁeld directions opposite

each other between adjacent layers is known as an inter-digital electrode pattern.

There are two techniques for making multilayered ceramic devices: the cut-and-bond method

and the tape-casting method . The cut-and-bond method does not require expensive facilities, but

does re quire a l ot o f m anpower/labor. Workers c ut a b ulk p iezo-ceramic sl ab i nto t hin p lates,

electrode them, and bond multiple plates together.

Alternatively, tape-casting requires an expensive fabrication facility, but almost no labor . This is

suitable for mass pr oduction and can pr oduce more than 100,000 pieces per month. F igure 1.11

shows a ﬂowchart of the manufacturing process of multilayer ceramic actuators. Green sheets ,ﬂexible

ﬁlms with piezoceramic powders in a binder, are prepared in two steps: slip preparation of the ceramic

powder and a doctor blade pr ocess. The slip is made b y mixing the ceramic po wder with solv ent,

deﬂocculant, binder, and plasticizer. The slip is cast into a ﬁlm under a special straight blade, called a

doctor blade, whose distance above the carrier determines the ﬁ lm thickness. After drying, the green

sheet has the elastic ﬂ exibility of synthetic leather . The green sheet is then cut into an appr opriate

size, and internal electrodes are printed using silver, paladium or platinum ink. Tens to hundreds of

such layers are then laminated and pressed using a hot press. After cutting into small chips, the green

bodies are sintered at around 1200°C in a furnace. The sintered chips are then polished and externally

electroded, lead wires are attached, and ﬁnally the chips are coated with a waterproof spray.

1.3.2 Topics to Be Discussed in This Textbook Break-Even Analysis, Investment Theory

The introduction of a tape-casting facility , which is an expensiv e automation pr oduction system

costing $300,000 per set, is r ecommended only if pr oduction exceeds 1 million pieces per y ear.

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