Inside Elitegroup Computer Systems: From Taipei to Shen Zhen
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 4, 2003 12:39 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Getting to China
Computex 2003 Hall 1 Showfloor
As we mentioned earlier, the ECS-PC Chips company is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan (Republic of China). There are dozens of ECS branches in the world, from California to Japan, South America and Europe. Because we were in Taipei for Computex 2003, we had a perfect opportunity to visit Shen Zhen, China and see the production facilities of ECS firsthand.
Already, just getting to the factory in China is a political fiasco. For US and European citizens, the ability to travel into China requires only a Visa, which is usually pretty easy to obtain. However, our Taiwanese hosts required a bit more paperwork since the Chinese government does not recognize Taiwanese citizens as Chinese citizens. Thus, only the port city and former British ruled colony of Hong Kong allows entry to planes from Taipei. Our final destination, Shen Zhen, has an international airport, but we have to fly from Taipei to Hong Kong and then drive 2 hours from Hong Kong to Shen Zhen. Six checkpoints and 5 hours after leaving the Taipei World Trade Center, we arrived at our destination: ECSM Shen Zhen.
The ECSM facility is comprised of three separate buildings. The #5 and #20 factories are owned by ECSM (one of the Chinese sub-companies in Elitegroup), while the #26 factory is a new factory that is owned by ECS Taiwan. Chinese government allowed ECS to become one of the first Taiwanese companies to own a factory in Shen Zhen, a fact they are quite proud of. It is easy to forget that Shen Zhen used to be a sleep port city neighbored to Hong Kong. As an experiment in the late 1970’s, China allowed Shen Zhen to become the first city in the country to allow capitalism. As the city exploded into a metropolis of more than 7 million people, the Chinese government watches the city and its workers vigorously.
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Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
"Quote # 19"Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#17-Most people RMA products because they are ignorant fools who should be buying Dells.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Is it a misprint, or do 50% of the originally manufactured bare motherboards fail QA? If that's true, you think they could figure out what the single biggest problem there is, fix it, and drop the fail rate to 20% or something. Yeesh. This article makes it seem like a miracle that their motherboards even work at all.I was going to mention how terrible a job sticking SIMM/DIMM connectors onto motherboards, all day, every day, for $150 a month would be, but then I thought there are a lot worse ways these women could be forced to make money.
AgaBooga - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Any response to #7?Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#9 you ignorant slut...since it is impossible to get the truth about employment practices, manufacturing practices (although the article alludes to how others around ECS are polluting)or just about anything else in china your statements just show you to be an apologist for a corrupt and tyrannical system...
i can guarantee that there are no 'lazy' workers over there, a mistake or two on the line and you go back to the rice paddy and another slave takes your place - one hell of a motivator...
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Nice article although ECS and it's affiliates still produce some of the worst motherboards I have ever used.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
A very interesting article.What is surprising is that it is not more mechanized and that there is so much (wo)manual labor involved!As far as the cost of labor is concerned.It may be likely that $150 is considered a good wage in ChinaAnonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
A very great article, I knew that ECS was a large company. But not that large and I did´nt know that they have had Matsonic and PC Chips.The article could have been much more with their mainboards and Notebooks Espacially about the QA, and production technics.
#6 ECS Produce ALOT of mainboards it is somewhat impossible to garantee a mainboard that is not defetive, or an entire shipment.
Here they article could give us some insight on what happens with RMA mainboards at ECS, this would defently provide some insight what a mainboard manufactor do with these mainboards.
#11, I agree with you.
#9, to the part of the postoffice, I can only say this. In the US the law require that a Coperate Employer also hire Minority Groups in giving %.
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#6, you're an idiot, stop posting.DAVIDS - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#9, I think you're making a lot of over-generalizations about American workers. Lazy people can be found in every country. There are a lot of American workaholics who spend 50-60 hours/week on the job. Also, you seem to forget that many of the technological innovations found in computers were made by researchers here in the US. The microprocessor, random access memory, etc. are all American inventions.