04-12-2020, 09:10 AM
Most PCB assembly plants in China (and the world) are highly automated. Pick and place machines just need a few people to hang new reels as they are exhausted. Final assembly and test take more people and are less subject to automation. However, as has been pointed out in this thread, it is the entire infrastructure that goes with assembling the products that would also have to be reconstructed in the US. Just doing final assembly here wouldn't alleviate reliance on offshore component manufacturing.
Making semiconductor parts is a gnarly business. I remember being give a tour of the National fab in Mountain View. My friend who was showing me around said " See that purple pipe up there? If it breaks, you won't have time to run. And, for that matter, neither would much of Mountain View". While there probably was some hyperbole involved, there are lots of hazardous materials involved. Even PCB fabrication involves materials that must be carefully disposed of. (Although there still is at least 1 PCB manufacturer in the Santa Clara. Their prices are 5X what a Colorado company costs and 20X what a "premium" Chinese manufacturer will charge) Making resistors and capacitors also has such challenges, and even lower margins. You aren't building those plants in the Bay Area, and probably not in California. There are many paint processes that are not legal in California that are legal in other parts of the country. In China, nobody is asking. Environmentally friendly it may not be, but it is a big reason why the plants are there.
The other problem with such commodity manufacturing is that it is low margin and highly competitive. Paying "reasonable" taxes is a problem, and paying high taxes is just a non-starter. Nobody in the US is going to regard investing in such a business as a good investment. The ROI is just too low and the competitive risk is too great. Better let somebody else in an area more receptive to that kind of manufacturing take the risk for the (relatively) low return. Buy info Facebook instead.
Making semiconductor parts is a gnarly business. I remember being give a tour of the National fab in Mountain View. My friend who was showing me around said " See that purple pipe up there? If it breaks, you won't have time to run. And, for that matter, neither would much of Mountain View". While there probably was some hyperbole involved, there are lots of hazardous materials involved. Even PCB fabrication involves materials that must be carefully disposed of. (Although there still is at least 1 PCB manufacturer in the Santa Clara. Their prices are 5X what a Colorado company costs and 20X what a "premium" Chinese manufacturer will charge) Making resistors and capacitors also has such challenges, and even lower margins. You aren't building those plants in the Bay Area, and probably not in California. There are many paint processes that are not legal in California that are legal in other parts of the country. In China, nobody is asking. Environmentally friendly it may not be, but it is a big reason why the plants are there.
The other problem with such commodity manufacturing is that it is low margin and highly competitive. Paying "reasonable" taxes is a problem, and paying high taxes is just a non-starter. Nobody in the US is going to regard investing in such a business as a good investment. The ROI is just too low and the competitive risk is too great. Better let somebody else in an area more receptive to that kind of manufacturing take the risk for the (relatively) low return. Buy info Facebook instead.