Mousekingdom Blog

If you say Audio Animatronics its very likely you will use Disney in the same sentence. Walt pretty much invented the figures, improved them and made it part of Disney’s most important inheritance. Imagineers have been updating, re-inventing and shown the world some amazing new advanced Audio Animatronincs. Look at the road it made from using the term for the very first time in 1961, opening the Enchanted Tiki Room in 1963 and the trademark filed in 1964. Look at the New York fair (again 1964) with the Audio Animatronic of Lincoln, It’s a Small World, Carousel of Progress and a list that kept on growing and growing every year with rides as Pirates of the Caribbean to Lucky the Dinosaur and up to Toy Story Midway Mania today…

This weekend however a internal memo where Disney informed employees that they will start outsourcing some of their Audio Animatronics to third parties was forwarded to OC Register.

The Walt Disney Co. will begin out-sourcing the manufacturing of Audio Animatronics because of too much demand on staff time, according to an Imagineering memo sent to the Orange County Register and Disney Imagingeering Spokeswoman Marilyn Waters.

The memo is dated June 12, 2008, and was sent to all Walt Disney Imagineering employees from Bruce Vaughn, chief creative executive, Craig Russell, chief development and delivery executive, and Kevin Eld, vice president of Disney Creative Production. The memo was sent to and received by the Orange County Register today. Imagineers is Disney’s a word for designers and engineers. (OC Register)

The outsourcing might come to a surprise to many Disney fans and employees but the news is not totally new as Disney already started the outsourcing when working on the “it’s a Small World” project in Hong Kong Disneyland.

The reason for taking this action, given in the memo by Vaughn, is the high demand placed on WDI staff and resources by producing these iconic Disney theme park figures in house. (O-Mean)

The memo states that after review manufacturing all Audio-Animatronics figures in-house is not feasible in terms of cost and staffing. Instead, Imagineering’s Manufacturing and Prototype Operations group based in North Hollywood will “build some select, highly complex” figures in-house. (OC Register)

But what will the impact be for the Disney Imagineers and employees who worked on these projects? Even with the core business shifting to new and more sophisticated models, Disney will not need its full team they use to have. 22 people where asked to clean their desk at WDI’s Manufacturing and Prototype Operations Tujunga facility in North Hollywood, or a total of about 40%. (Source O-Mean)

This is a sad day for Disney and the Imagineers. Audio Animatronics are part of Disney, if they’re small or big, old or new. Outsourcing might be the “in thing” to do (I’ve seen it in the company I worked for a couple of months ago too – but that is a whole other story), but it isn’t always the right decision. In this case it is a lost for a company that is partly build on the succes of Audio Animatronics. One can only hope that one day the decision will be overturned and that Audio Animatronics will come back where they belong, somewhere on Disney property, on a Disney workbench, under the watchful eyes of the Imagineers…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Disney Company, Disney Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.