Company will cut the number of platforms it uses and outsource jobs Toshiba Corp. is planning a sweeping reorganization of its personal computer business that will cut the number of platforms it uses and see some manufacturing and design work shifted outside of Japan or outsourced, the company said this week.Details of the reorganization, in which 500 jobs will be lost throughout its PC operations, came as the Tokyo-based company disclosed that its personal computer business recorded a loss for the period between April and June of this year. Toshiba also cut ¥50 billion ($431 million) from its group full year net sales forecast and ¥30 billion from its group operating profit forecast.The company listed a number of reasons for the downgrade, including falling prices, but said its main problem is its wide product line. “Our biggest problem is that we have too many platforms and that raises the cost for each PC,” company spokeswoman Midori Suzuki said on Thursday.As a result, the company plans to reduce the number of motherboards it uses in its PCs by 30 percent and the number of components it uses by 20 percent. The goal of bringing more commonality to the company’s PC range is a shorter development time and lower costs, the company said in a statement.Also in the area of product development, the company said it plans to add 50 engineers to its design center in Hangzhou in eastern China, taking the total there to 150 engineers, and to outsource development of commodity models. Toshiba wouldn’t identify its outsourcing partners but it currently uses mainly Taiwanese companies for PC production. Toshiba, which has traditionally been stronger in the corporate market than the consumer market, said a shift in sales towards consumer models has also hit its business.“Before, our main business was to corporations but now we have to increase our business to individual customers because corporate investment is not increasing,” Suzuki said.The shift will see Toshiba direct more resources to sales and marketing aimed at the home and small-to-medium business markets. The company is quick to say this won’t mean a reduction in commitment to corporate account customers, however. The company will still be able to handle customization requests for components such as the processor, hard disk drive and memory from such customers, even though the number of underlying platforms will be reduced, Suzuki said. Like most corporate reorganizations announced in Japan in the last few years, Toshiba is also reviewing the production side of its operations and will move some jobs offshore.Production capacity at the company’s plant in the Philippines will be increased from 180,000 units per month to 200,000 units, while that of its plant in Hangzhou will be increased from 70,000 units to 120,000 units. Toshiba’s facility in Ome, Japan, will see capacity reduced from 80,000 units to 50,000 units although it will remain the core center for product design and development.Toshiba also said it plans to gradually shift build-to-order manufacturing from plants in the U.S. and Germany to the Philippines and China. Some of the production work currently handled in-house will also be transferred to outsourcing companies to take the percentage of outsourced work from around 20 percent to around 30 percent of all production. The reorganization is to be completed “as soon as possible,” Suzuki said. Technology Industry