In the $1980$s$,$ Japanese competitors brought better$-$quality chips to the market at lower cost, threatening Intel Corporation's position and strategic plan regarding the production of DRAM $($dynamic random$-$access memory$)$ chips. When the functional managers at Intel came up with the simple rule of producing whichever product delivered the higher margin, the front$-$line managers shifted Intel's production capacity away from the lower$-$margin DRAM business to the higher$-$margin semiconductor business. This emerged as a consequence of the firm's resource allocation process.