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A comment on Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK.

Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by mappingbabel0 on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:43AM (#4484312)
I spoke with Raspberry Pi about this for a news story I wrote. They said this about manufacturing: "The temptation is always to push manufacturing to a low-cost region, but I think with the right attention to detail there's no reason British manufacturing can't compete in a global marketplace," Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi foundation told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "It shows that British manufacturing can be competitive." ( http://www.zdnet.com/raspberry-pi-manufacturing-comes-home-a... )

Are there similar moves underway in the US?

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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by ricardobeat on Thursday September 06, 2012 @07:29PM (#4486865)
Just a small one, but the Teensy creator was looking into moving manufacturing to the US. I just found out about the Teensy 3.0 on Kickstarter[1] actually, but it doesn't mention anything about the manufacturing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulstoffregen/teensy-30...

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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by bnastic on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:20PM (#4484847)
A lot of professional sound studio gear is still being made in the UK and the US (and has always been. Studio types are very picky about the origin of the gear they are using).
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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by UK-AL on Friday September 07, 2012 @02:10AM (#4487849)
I think people should not be picky about the origin but the quality. If you really care about local manufacturing then making it competitive should be your priority and not charity or warm fuzzy feelings. Tough love and all that.
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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by pnathan on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:55AM (#4484683)
My employer manufactures high-end electronic goods in the US with a full manufacturing floor. We succeed in part because of aggressive attention to detail, exacting automation and constant improvement.

It also helps that we're not in a price race to the bottom.

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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by joshuahedlund on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:47AM (#4484632)
Yes, Google "reshoring" for a number of news articles and opinion pieces about how it's happening to some degree and how big of a deal it may or may not be.
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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by dangrossman on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:10AM (#4484440)
Yes, it's actually a White House talking point this week: "Since February 2010, the U.S. manufacturing sector has added roughly 500,000 jobs, the fastest pace of job growth in the sector since 1995".
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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by kokey on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:21AM (#4484495)
I think there has been a general recognition that rebuilding local supply chain in manufacturing is essential. Especially in the industries where this is still possible.

Cheap labour only helps if two years of labour is cheaper than a machine that can do the work. The machines get cheaper and labour gets more expensive. It obviously doesn't mean a lot of the low skilled jobs are ever going to return to the countries they have left, but at least it creates opportunity for an ecosystem of local suppliers and innovation.

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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by adestefan on Thursday September 06, 2012 @01:55PM (#4485331)
There's a difference in measuring manufacturing by the number of jobs, the number of widgets created, or the value of the widgets created. The value of the widgets created is at the highest point it's ever been in the US.
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Re:Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK by hosh on Thursday September 06, 2012 @01:50PM (#4485309)
There was an article I read about how US manufacturing are making a comeback, but mostly in bespoke manufacturing that requires a lot of automation and technology.

On the other side, there is the story of the man who tried to source all of his solar panel parts in the US. He's actually having difficulty doing this (supply chain issues).

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