Inside Elitegroup Computer Systems: From Taipei to Shen Zhen
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 4, 2003 12:39 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
E-Trend: Factory #26
From the #26 factory roof, we can practically throw a stone at the #20 building we were just in. The part you can’t see is the steel and stone wall around the building we were in. We mentioned earlier that factory #26, E-Trend, was an experimental facility where the Chinese government allowed ECS Taiwan to own a factory on Chinese soil. Obviously, things like security checkpoints and 7-foot high walls are some of the terms that go along with that deal!
Similar to the motherboard assembly line, we got to see a laptop assembled in less than 5 minutes as it cruised down one of the assembly lines. As you will see, the entire laptop is assembled and tested, even if only the components or barebones laptop is the desired product. ECS reported in their last quarter that 47% of their profits came from laptop sales, rather than motherboard. While at the factory, we saw more than 7 completely different types of laptops; so it is clear that ECS is an even bigger OEM of laptops than they let on to be.
Here, a worker attaches circuitry for the LCD panel.
When you build 30 or 40 laptops an hour, per assembly line, using a blaster system to copy the contents of one hard drive onto 15 others saves a lot of time. The E-trend facility had about 20 of these stations on the assembly floor.
We will return to this part of the factory in a bit. Right now, we will head over to the QA floor. As it is easy to see, this is no small operation. Each of these systems (shown below) will run for 4 hours of high load before being boxed up. The particular OEM client ordered a few thousand components. ECS is capable of testing 40 racks of these machines, each with 15 units on each rack. Since this factory also works on two shifts, that’s about 1200 systems per day from this floor.
Click to enlarge.
E-Trend uses an identical setup for laptops, with 15 units per rack. 400 laptops running 3DMark2001 at the same time has an unusual, but calming, sound to it.
We found a bad laptop in the fray. ECS wouldn’t let me take it home.
Click to enlarge.
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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.