A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand.

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1974

This study is concerned with ·the characteristics of the iron and steel industry in Thailand. The development of the industry is first described. This includes the time-series geographical distribution of firms size in terms of employment and capitalization, then they are quantitatively analyzed. Such analyses are divided in two groups--small firms and large firms. Small firms are those which have no more than 20 employees or 2 million baht capital. The iron and steel industry is classified into 3 categories, according to the Factory Act of the Royal Thai Ministry of Industry--classification 59, classification 63, and classification 64. Gamma functions are used to fit the employment distribution of small firms for the whole industry as well as the three categories. While negative exponential functions are used to fit the capitalization distribution of small firms. Important statistics like mean, standard deviation are subsequently derived. Such statistics are also derived by direct computation for large firms. The industry is also grouped into 23 product types. No distribution can be used to fit them. Hence, important statistics are alternative computed directly for comparison purpose. Promoted firms are then analyzed separately. Case studies are made on selected firms in the industry for the purpose of tracing the development of technological capability.