Digital Audio Disc Corp.: the Sony subsidiary celebrates 20 years in Terre Haute.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Focus - Interview - Company Profile

For teenagers, the only news that matters from Terre Haute's Digital Audio Disc Corp., a Sony Corp. subsidiary, is the next release--be it DVD, CD or games for the new portable PlayStation coming next year.

For those with their eye on Indiana's economy, the news that counts includes this year's $20 million production expansion and announcements that the new PlayStation games will be made in Terre Haute as well as high-definition prerecorded video, to be launched from the plant in 2005 or 2006.

"Having content, having hardware, having production engineering capability with strong reinvestment and a very tight-knit group that meets regularly really drive our success," says Michael Mitchell, executive vice president.

Mitchell oversees a massive Terre Haute operation, both in size and production volume. Two buildings with a combined 730,000 square feet are located across Fruitridge Avenue from each other, connected by both a tunnel and pedestrian overpass.

Daily production, which runs around the clock seven days a week, currently totals 850,000 low-density products--PlayStation games, audio CDs and CD ROMs--and 1.55 million high-density products--including DVDs, videos, DVD-ROMs and PlayStation 2 games. That's more CDs, DVDs and PlayStation media than are made at any other facility in the world, the company reports.

And production is way up from its early years.

"We started in the CD audio business. We were the first CD manufacturer in this country. In September and October 1984, about 300,000 discs a month was our capacity," Mitchell says.

The first recording produced was Brace Springsteen's "Born in the USA." Other top artists have included Barbara Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, John Mellencamp, Mariah Carey and countless more. It also produced the "Spiderman" film on DVD, which became the largest-selling release on an optical-disc format.

"Through the latter part of the '80s and early '90s, we were in a period of total expansion in those low--density products," Mitchell says. Video discs were made from 1989 to 1996. "Every low-density format that come along, we've participated in," he says.

The latest boost for Digital Audio Disc Corp. came this year with 15 new production lines, requiring $20 million in new equipment, Mitchell reports. "We had the space. The lines are up and running."

In all, some 1,030 workers are on the job, putting in 12-hour days, four days on and four days off. The Indiana staff...