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Tag: American Manufacturing

  • Toyota To Texas: Company Moves Its Headquarters to Plano

    Car manufacturer Toyota today announced that it will be moving its corporate headquarters to Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.

    The new headquarters will unify the company’s sales and marketing; manufacturing; and corporate operations headquarters in one central location. Those divisions are currently headquartered in three separate locations: Torrance, California; Erlanger, Kentucky; and New York City.

    Over the next three years around 4,000 current Toyota employees from those three locations will be affected by the transition, with half coming from the Torrance headquarters. Small groups of employees will relocate to Plano starting this summer, though the majority of employees will not be moved to Texas until late 2016 or early 2017.

    Toyota’s 10 U.S. manufacturing plants will not be affected by the move. In addition, some 300 production engineering jobs will be moved from Erlanger to a new facility planned to be built at the company’s Georgetown, Kentucky manufacturing plant.

    “With our major North American business affiliates and leaders together in one location for the first time, we will be better equipped to speed decision making, share best practices, and leverage the combined strength of our employees,” said Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota’s North American operations. “This, in turn, will strengthen our ability to put customers first and to continue making great products that exceed their expectations. Ultimately, enabling greater collaboration and efficiencies across Toyota will help us become a more dynamic, innovative and successful organization in North America. This is the most significant change we’ve made to our North American operations in the past 50 years, and we are excited for what the future holds.”

    The groundbreaking for Toyota’s new Plano headquarters will take place sometime this fall. Construction is expected to take at least two years.

    Toyota’s move will affect the Torrance and Erlanger communities significantly, taking both jobs and tax revenue to Texas. To ease the burden on these cities Toyota has promised to commit $10 million to non-profit and community organizations in those communities starting in 2017.

    Image via Toyota

  • Blackberry Z30: 5 must know details and future predictions

    Blackberry Z30: 5 must know details and future predictions

    Blackberry Ltd, formerly Research In Motion (RIM), launched its flagship phone Blackberry Z30 on Wednesday, in a desperate do or die bid to survive the Darwinian competition from East Asia.

    It is no secret how ruthless the smartphone world has become. In this globalized marketplace, customers are extremely picky. They want the best design, best hardware, best software, best Apps and best audio-visual experience.

    So is the Z30 up to the task in stemming the hemorrhaging Blackberry has suffered in its market share, profits and stock price? Let us find out.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQVKISYQ31s

    1. Display

    The Z30 sports an all new 5-inch AMOLED touch-screen with 1280 x 720 resolution and 295 ppi. This may be news to Blackberry fans, but ancient history for Samsung, the reigning king of smartphones. Samsung, Sony, and even the upstart Huawei from mainland China have introduced sharp, clear, stunningly beautiful screens as large as 6-inches.

    Sony is a particularly apt example since it has been at the losing end of the smartphone wars for many years. So how did Sony use its manufacturing prowess to grab the limelight? Introduce a smartphone with the world’s largest screen. At 6.4 inches of full-HD display, potential customers will certainly take note.

    Not so for poor Blackberry with its puny little 5-inch screen, dependent on the mercy of its off-shore manufacturing suppliers in East-Asia.

    2. Hardware

    The Z30 has a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core processor, Adreno 320 graphics, 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage. You can expand the 16GB to 64GB using a microSD.

    Along comes a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an uninspiring 8-megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 lens and 1080p HD video recording capability. The non-removable 2880 mAh battery is a welcome addition and is estimated to run 12-hours of video playback. In addition, the Z30 includes the obligatory wireless functionality including 4G LTE, dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, NFC and Bluetooth.

    The hardware is certainly no push-over, but not class leading either. This means potential customers will have a hard time figuring out the vow factor and rush to their nearest wireless provider to try out the Z30.

    3. Blackberry 10 operating system

    Let me ask you this. When was the last time you used your friend’s (or your dad’s) Blackberry and said, “Amazing, its one of the coolest OS I have used!” Nevertheless, here is what Carlo Chiarello, Executive Vice President for Products at BlackBerry had to say,

    “The… Z30 smartphone builds on the…BlackBerry 10 platform with features like the powerful BlackBerry Hub, its exceptional touchscreen keyboard and industry leading browser…The smartphone rounds out the BlackBerry 10 portfolio and is designed for people looking for a smartphone that excels at communications, messaging and productivity. Having apps like the full Documents To Go suite that comes pre-installed…Z30 smartphone gives you a best in class productivity experience on the go.”

    With 80% of the operating system market-share cornered by Android in less than 5 years, Blackberry has been caught flat-footed. It would be a miracle of the 21st century, if the market-share of Blackberry 10 v10.2 crosses even 5%, let alone trounce the Android-iOS duopoly.

    4. Blackberry Stock

    If there was any doubt that Z30 was a game changer, it would have immediately reflected in Blackberry’s stock price. But the almighty market offered a tepid response to the release. In coming days, as more fans and potential customers use the new OS, things might change for the better. But don’t hold your breadth. Nokia learned the hard way and ended up latching on to Microsoft’s teat, so the clock is definitely ticking for the boys from Waterloo. Blackberry Stock

    5. Waterloo at Kuala Lumpur?

    Blackberry unveiled the Z30 at an event in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur? What is that? For the curious, but geographically challenged, it is the capital city of Malaysia, a newly industrialized country in the heart of South-East Asia, and close to Bangkok, the popular tourism destination for Westerners. Now I have nothing against Kuala Lumpur. It is a beautiful city, famous for spicy Malaysian cuisine and the architecturally dazzling Petronas twin-towers.

    But if you are a smartphone company struggling to survive in the intensive care unit, why choose a venue that lacks the demographic heft or the gravitational pull within the design, fashion and tech-world? London, Paris, Shanghai, San-Francisco, Singapore, New York, even Tokyo would have been far savvier destinations for unveiling the Z30. Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE should send a thank you note to the individual in-charge of choosing Kuala Lumpur.

    Finally, I do not want to hurt the feelings of Blackberry faithful, but unless the “free” trade policies that have destroyed the American manufacturing are abolished, sell your Blackberry stock and phone as soon as you can. Apple remains the last great Western-origin consumer electronics giant standing, and Sony, Samsung, LG, Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo are not going to raise the white-flag anytime soon.

    East Asians – the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese – are not as naive when it comes to manufacturing and trade policies.

    [images from youtube and yahoo finance]

  • Google Steps Up their Game with American Made Nexus Q Player

    Google’s new wireless home media player, the Nexus Q, features something you won’t find on too many other electric devices these day.

    No, it’s not some crazy new microchip, it’s a simple laser etched tag that says, “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A”.

    A novelty to be sure, most companies have abandoned the high costs of American manufacturing in favor of low-cost Chinese manufacturing. In fact, it has been a long time since we have seen any significant electronics manufacturing in America. According to Andy Rubin, the Google executive who leads the company’s Android mobile business, they aren’t trying bring back American manufacturing they’re just trying it out.

    But while some companies are enjoying the low cost, and reduced regulation that comes with foreign manufacturing, others find the increased lead times and reduced flexibility too limiting. When you’re talking about high-tech and custom order, you need realtime feedback and fast turnaround times. That’s where the quality comes from.

    Besides, heading off to China for a couple weeks to fix a manufacturing issue can leave headquarters back in the United States at a disadvantage and short staffed. Perhaps some of these issues are at the heart of Google’s decision to manufacture and design the new Nexus Q devices in Silicon Valley rather than some far away land.