October 3, 2000 9:05am
Cisco opens new plant
By Margaret Kane ZDII
Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) will hire 2,500 people over the next
3 to 5 years and spend over a $100 million on new capital and interior
improvements, the company said today at the opening of a new optical
plant in New Hampshire.
The new 674,000 square foot manufacturing facility, opened Tuesday in
Salem, will be used for testing, assembly, and distribution of Cisco
products globally.
The company also said today that it was working on production of a
"portable photonics manufacturing process" to help Cisco's partners
quickly adopt optical manufacturing processes and produce optical
systems based on Cisco's requirements.
That's part of a new manufacturing strategy for optical networking
products. Cisco hopes to be able to outsource that business as
successfully as it has some of its router and switch products.
Carl Redfield, head of manufacturing for Cisco, said that Cisco's backlog
as of last Monday had quadrupled to $3.83 billion from a year-ago
figure of $922 million. The growth was due mainly to demand, not
components shortages, he said.
The growth in next-generation optical systems due to the expansion of
the Internet is one factor behind that, Cisco said. The New Hampshire
facility will be the hub for production of those system |
