Capital Budgeting and Applied Technologies Term Paper

With a strong customer and employee basis, the company envisions taking early leadership of the global market. This is also to be based upon management excellence on a local scale. The management team is envisioned to be capable of translating vision into performance on both a local and global scale, while also investing strategically to maximize profitability and performance.

d. In terms of Research and Development, Applied Materials has increased its investments despite economic downturns. The purpose of this was to increase its potential future profitability by providing advanced manufacturing systems for its customers worldwide. This proved to be a good strategy, as the company had build a broad product line that catered for nearly every chip manufacturing stage. In order to reach the next step; integrating systems to perform a specific process sequence, a new facility was needed, and 1997 saw the beginning of construction on the Equipment and Process Integration Center (EPIC).EPIC represents the first facility of its kind in the semiconductor industry, in its capacity as a dedicated 200mm pilot line integration facility. Specifically, the Center enables the company's customers to make their technology transitions with greater speed and ease. To do this, the Center enables them to evaluate and integrate new manufacturing systems in advance of installing these. This provides the company with an important leading edge in the global marketplace. To accomplish this was a challenge on multiple levels that did not end with the Center opening its doors in 1998. Indeed, in order to adhere to its central aims, engineers for the center had to effectively implement systems by which they could set up their systems as often as once per month and make quick modifications according to….....