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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Shalmanese - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
"In any case, the factory itself does seem extremely considering all of the manual labor around. "seem extremely what?
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I am using an ECS board AMD XP 2400 CPU. Works well (no problem with Windows 98, XP, or Linux). Cheap too ~$67. I built another for mom and it works great too. ECS provides computer motherboards that are affordable and work great (very stable) and that's what most families of the world want/need.It's good to put people to work by buying ECS. Or else, they would starve because companies will move elsewhere (e.g., India) where labor is cheaper to cut costs (that's why motherboard factories moved from Taiwan to China in the first place).
It may not be perfect wages compared to the U.S. but I'm sure the workers over there appreciate it and the nice clean factories. Living costs are lower too over there.
In the U.S., workers complain too much and half ass too much that's why all companies are shipping the jobs overseas where people work harder, better, and complain less. Sucks for U.S. workers but tough luck for there laziness. Look at Ford and all american cars (sucks bigtime--100% breakdown within 1 year). I know none of you computer users would ever want americans to build motherboards or else all computers would breakdown in a few months and still cost a lot. And every year workers would play the stupid Strike game delaying products. No, no consumers wants lazy, clumsy, greedy game playing americans workers messing with our computer parts.
I would do the same (hire hardworking overseas workers) if I ran a corporation. Why pay premium wages to lazy half ass workers who complain all the time and threaten lawsuits and call in sick every month so they can watch a ball game and file fake workers comp claims which is typical of american workers?
BTW, I went to a post office where there were 4 asian clerk and 1 american clerk. The asian workers were polite and very very efficient and competant easily servicing 1 client a minute (max). The lazy, incompetant american worker took 10 minute per client and kept needing to ask questions from the supervisor. I think that anyone running a business if they saw this difference in work efficiency/competancy would only hire asians since they are most efficent and competant and result in best business profits (for shareholders) and lowest costs and best products for consumers.
I know lazy americans might get angry but if you think rationally, you know I am right and that's what most businessmen think.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Nice! I've always wondered where that crappy motherboard in my Grandma's eMachine came from.AgaBooga - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Its good to see the QA put into their parts, I wonder if any other motherboard vendors will read this article and improve if they aren't as good as ECS in terms of testing. If their parts go through this much testing, then why do people sometimes have to RMA a board like this?Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Forgot to tell about PC Chips history with fake cache on motherboards back in the 486-days...ECS is one of the companies that pay as little as they can to the workers.
Some of their series really have a RMA-problems... but they are cheap. The manufacture a lot for others -- some are good, others are typical ECS-quality.
Seems to me like a big "Thank you for the trip"-article....
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
After the fake cache scandal pc chips was involved with in the earily pentium motherboard days, i'd swore to never touch any of their products again. Be it ecs, amptron, alton, houston tech, etc etc etc.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
"I emailed Anand if we could get polo shirts with that motto on it, but I did not get a response."Anyone who appreciates irony has to be in hysterics over this line.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
if ECS went public 10 yrs after creation, why is it 1994 and not 1997 in the first paragraph?DAVIDS - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Very informative article. It's amazing that many of the workers get only $150/month. I sure hope their room and board is included.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
This is a great article that provides information that i cant find everywhere else.Good job Kristopher!
I never would have imagined that the bulk of the ECS workforce were women.