Asyst Technologies Reviews

Pros

1. High technology involvement with top-tier customers
2. Immediate feedback and involvement with critical semi-conductor technologies.

Cons

1. Exceptionally competitive field as component supplier to OEMs.

Pros

- Sound strategy

- Credibility with customers

- Largest market share in its space

- Management made a point of communicating frequently

Cons

- Weak financial infrastructure

- Split loyalties in Japan offices

- Inconsistent execution of strategy and business plan

- Poor cash management

Advice to Senior Management

Failure of responsible executives to meet critical objectives must be confronted and punished. Don't be so patient. Put Japan on a shorter leash.

Pros

I had a great manager and many opportunities.

Cons

Other managers not as strong and not guided from the top down. The Company struggled to make money and stay in business the entire time I was there.

Advice to Senior Management

Materials and supplier management essential.

Pros

- Worldwide name recognition with some promising products.
 - Leadership position within some of its product market segment niches.
 - Some very talented employees (but disfunctional due to lack of proper direction).

Cons

- Poor management structure and leadership with lack of accountability for employees and middle level management (and possibly senior management?).
 - No yearly strategic planning effort (no agreed upon direction for product lines).
 - Lack of consistency in the decision making process for whether a project is a go or not (i.e. Business Plan, ROI analysis).
 - Poor integration/communication between Japan and Fremont teams/groups.
 - Engineering driven, no market/customer needs driven company (i.e. build it and they will come).

Advice to Senior Management

1) Better structure and process in place (or at least more consistant) before deciding to take on a new project and spend a significant amount or resources/money.
2) More accountability for its employees.
3) Become a market driven company.

Pros

Good supervision with clear direction. Problem statements were descriptive. Deadlines were reasonable.

Cons

Time was too tightly controlled with little inter team cooperation.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow employees to more freely interact with other teams to further company goals.

Pros

The people making up Asyst are willing (but not all are sufficiently skilled) to undertake their work's content. There is, however, a prevalent lack of accountability in the organization for low performance

Cons

Chaotic product development processes; discouragement of personal initiative was caused by unprofessional negative critical comments. Little if an coaching was exhibited.

Advice to Senior Management

Business Processes - especially customer-facing & market validation - were absent; this is surprising give that Steve Schwartz, CEO, has an MBA

Pros

Asyst had an extensive product line which are used in major semiconductor fabs worldwide. If you mastered most of the product line, you can use this knowledge easily in other jobs.

Technical employees are well-trained.

Cons

Management did not seem to get it. Instead of focusing in on core competences, they simply outsourced manufacturing losing a great deal of core competence. Instead of focusing in on profitable products, the focuses in on products that didn't seem to have a good fit in the industry.

Too many layers of management for the number of rank of file employees.

Asyst recently went bankrupt but is still operating.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your core employees. Cut your managment staff by 80% and re-hire core engineers and technicians to service your current installed base.

Pros

Freedom to pursue marketing and sales for region

Cons

Poor management understanding on how to deal with people. Management contributed to the demotivation of staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Understand core competency, stay within this core and eliminate all staff including some Sr. Mgmt. that are not contributing to this core.

Pros

Decent place to work, overtime manageable. Not stellar as far as cutting edge but good people worked there.

Cons

It filed chapter 11. More innovation was needed, better money management obviously.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay better attention to financials and market conditions.

Pros

The pay is pretty good for the industry but don't expect any pay raises.

Cons

Too management top heavy. there is 1.1 managers and above to every non-management.

Advice to Senior Management

the is no need for managers that do not have any subordinates and only manage a task. Listen to the people that are actually working along side the customer. The have a greater in site into the industry than the sale or marketing team.