Neil Hughes
Foxconn plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania as part of a $40 million investment by the Taiwan-based electronics maker, which is responsible for building the bulk of Apple's products.
Foxconn, also known by its trading name Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., plans to spend $30 million over the next two years on a Harrisburg, Penn., factory that will assemble components for telecommunications equipment and Internet servers, chairman Terry Gou revealed this week, according to Bloomberg. The remaining $10 million will be invested in research and development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn.
The company's new Harrisburg factory is expected to create about 500 jobs, expanding on an existing Foxconn manufacturing facility in the state capital that employs 30 people.
The announcement validates rumors from late last year that suggested Foxconn was planning to build new manufacturing plants within the U.S. However, there has been no indication thus far as to whether any American Foxconn facilities would handle production of Apple products.
Officials from Foxconn said last year that the idea of building products in America was intriguing to them because there is a demand for it among U.S. consumers. The company has already been planning a training program for U.S.-based engineers through a a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Companies such as Apple have come under fire for their reliance on labor from the Far East for the assembly of popular electronic devices. Critics have contended that wages are too low, and have pointed to highly publicized employee suicides as evidence of poor working conditions.
Apple has responded by pledging to build its new high-end Mac Pro desktop, which will become available next month, entirely within the U.S. Assembly of that device will be handled by Flextronics in Texas, transitioning manufacturing responsibilities of the Mac Pro away from current partner Foxconn.
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19 Comments
This is awesome news for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania! I am looking forward to learning more about this R&D investment!!
[quote name="leavingthebigG" url="/t/160858/apple-partner-foxconn-to-invest-40m-in-robots-research-in-pennsylvania#post_2438908"]This is awesome news for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania! I am looking forward to learning more about this R&D investment!![/quote] Anytime an area can attract a big tech investment it's a huge plus. Kudos to Harrisburg. There's indications the plant may primarily be building servers for HP among others (HP is one of their biggest clients). I'm wondering too if Huawei might use them in trying soften some of the security concerns voiced over their servers and telecommunications equipment. Many companies are being cautious about Huawei since some recent reports from the US Government and I noted the specific mention of telecommunications in the press release.
I like what Foxconn is doing but we need to realize that while this helps put Americans to work, the profits go back to Taiwan. This is the same as buying some models of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and even BMW. They are "assembled" in US plants with profits going back to where their corporate headquarters are. The grand old US of A is "owned" by foreign countries. Buying American doesn't mean what it used to mean. People have to understand we're owned by a global economy with a third of our debt owned by non-American companies and countries. Yes, it's nice to see Apple and others try and bring jobs back to the US but all of this buy American and keep the money local only works on a limited basis with a limited number of items. Yes, there still are products where "Made in the USA" means everything used in the creation of the product comes from US soil but not nearly as many as those products made from resources collected from around the world.
I hope the Foxconn project helps enrich people's lives in Pennsylvania because it's going to enrich Foxconn's bottom line in Taiwan.
$40M will be barely buy off a handful of politicians these days. FoxConn is going to have to step up its game.
The AFR-CIO will have demands. Extended smoke breaks, more time off, and free 10W-40 in all the break rooms.
Another thought---
Remember when we shipped all our manufacturing to "third-world" countries with cheap labor? It looks like the US is where cheap labor and infrastructure costs are (land, property taxes, fuel, etc.). All fun aside with labor unions and coffee breaks, maybe Foxconn and others are seeing that the benefits of assembling computer devices in the US outweighs the problems. If most of the devices they make will be consumed in the US, then why pay overseas shipping costs when they can be stuck on a truck.
Internet servers? Dell and HP?
Telecommunications devices? Cisco?