Jim:
Am waiting for Three to give a good description of the Dell tour
but perhaps can say a bit here:
The factory we visited is showcase building, typical Dell
construction off-white, resembles in appearance an office building in a business park. Designed to show the best most modern assembly
techniques to potential customers, with tall glass viewing walls dividing the halls from the work floor asembly area
Tours are routine and often with small groups of perhaps 7 or
10 people.
Parts come in off the suppliers trucks, parked in many bays
perhaps 50 feet from the start of the assembly line. The case comes
with power supply installed (I'm not sure about that part), the motherboard is inserted by sliding one edge under metal clips in the case and is attached with one screw thru the bottom of the case.Presto, the computer assembly takes 3 1/2 minutes.
( This is somewhat simplified, as the DD is installed and the
internal cables are attached.)
Each computer is always accompanied by the paperwork (several pages) which gives the configuration ordered by the customer. So that if a CD is ordered,it gets installed, and the DD size will
be specified.
After assembly, each computer is 'burned in' thru 2 one hour
sessions on a huge rack ( holds perhaps 2000 computers), where it
is 'exercised' or cycled, the result being less than 1% failure
rate of items shipped to customers..
Following that, the customer's specified software is loaded
into the hard drive, which requires 1.5 to as much as 8 hours.
Packaging is a miracle, flip,clack-clack of two staples
and a huge box is born from a flat collaped box, a swift kick
and it lands right side up . In drops the shipping cushion, and it
gets pushed 10 feet to the computer line (comes thru a wall)where the computer is set in. Then a pre-packaged keyboard from off a truck, then the mouse and paperwork, etc. Box is taped manually, loaded
about 16 to a cart and wheeled out to a delivery truck/trailer.
As previously stated, the factory output is 8000 per day, so I
would expect considerable 16 wheeler activity in the shipping/
receiving area which was not visible to us.
SES
|
