Inventec Corp (英業達) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) yesterday said the company is thinking of setting up an intelligent manufacturing plant in Indonesia or the Philippines next year as part of its global expansion.
The new facility is to initially manufacture smartphones and PC-related products such as all-in-one computers, commercial tablets and mini-desktop computers based on customer demand, Lee said during a break at an event marking a cloud partnership between Microsoft Corp and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信).
Comparing the two possible locations, Lee said Indonesia has a huge labor force with its population of 200 million people, while people aged under 20 account for nearly 50 percent of the Philippines population, indicating a younger labor force with a higher acceptance of cloud computing applications at factories.
Moreover, the Philippines is geographically closer than Indonesia, which could save time for business trips, he said.
“We’re not going to copy our traditional labor-intensive Chinese factories,” Lee said, adding that Inventec is discussing the new facility with its clients and has not finalized the plan.
Inventec’s Chinese plants in Shanghai and Nanjing are to begin to deploy Web-based intelligent manufacturing systems after the company signed a letter of intent on Monday with Siemens PLM Software to cash in on a global push to upgrade manufacturing operations.
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