Lenovo Building Manufacturing Plant in North Carolina 120
An anonymous reader writes "One of the major themes of the ongoing presidential election in the United States has been the perceived need to bring product manufacturing back to the United States. A recent announcement from Lenovo is going to play to this point; the PC manufacturer said today that it's building a U.S. location in Whitsett, North Carolina. The new facility is small, with just over 100 people and is being built for a modest $2M, but Lenovo states that it's merely the beginning of a larger initiative."
It makes sense: their U.S. HQ is a stone's throw away in RTP.
Re:Good news, to be sure, but on the other hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
..has our dollar really declined that much?
It is not so much the decline of the dollar, as the automation of manufacturing. As factories become more automated, the "labor" component of the cost goes down, and at some point is exceed by the transportation and inventory costs of off-shoring. At that point it becomes cost effective to "re-shore" the factory.
I have been inside factories in both China and the USA. Chinese factories bustle with people. American factories tend to be almost devoid of all lifeforms. Manufacturing is coming back to America, but manufacturing jobs are not.
How Funny (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point, if the west really wants to acknowledge China's gov cold war and take it on, then we should start sending as many MBA's to China as humanly possible. Of course, the Chinese will probably realize it and simply put a bullet in each one of them and then charge the USA for it, while subsidizing and dumping the rest of the ammo on America's market.
Re:Maybe the quality will improve? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm typing this from a thinkpad x201, and have failed to see any issues. Design wise very little has changed on it since the owership changed.
Some people could consider it stagnation, but I consider it "don't fix what isn't broken"
It still has all the features nobody else is willing to do in a single package, like a quality nub, reading light, waterproof keyboard, etc.
The connectivity options are impressive, not only the usual wifi/ethernet/cellular but it even still comes with an in-built 56k modem.. on an i5 :)