Dell plant exceeds first-year goals
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 8/1/2006 12:00:00 AM
The buzz at Dell Computer's 750,000-square-foot manufacturing facility outside Winston-Salem, N.C., last October came from the employee cafeteria, where Michael Dell, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, and 500 guests attended the ribbon cutting for the new plant. But this past May, the hum was coming from the highly automated production line that was assembling the plant's millionth computer.
Dell also exceeded its first-year goal of hiring 750 employees—breaking 1,000 in eight months.
"We're obviously thrilled to be ahead of schedule," says Richard Binhammer, Dell spokesperson. "To already be at 1,000 employees speaks volumes for the team and the facility. They're going gangbusters."
The new plant was a huge win for North Carolina—burdened with a declining textile industry—and a great testament of faith on the part of Dell to invest more than $100 million in manufacturing capacity in North America when most manufacturers are offshoring.
The plant—which is more than twice the size of Dell's facility in Austin, Texas—is strategically located on the east coast to be closer to 60 percent of its market. It advances state-of-the-art production with newly designed applications and configurations, from receiving through build-and-test, warehousing, and distribution. The plant can produce one computer every 2.5seconds.
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