What is motivating companies like Lego to bring manufacturing back home?
Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
101–110 of 345 posts
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, the "cheap plastic" thing is clearly said by someone who don't know plastic. NASA included a bunch of pieces on one of their Mars crafts to check the cameras since they knew the parameters of the LEGO pieces losing their color better than the cameras. LEGOs are durable. Also, even if the unit cost of injection molding plastic might not be super high, the cost of making the molds is. I've heard discarded molds a…
all you'd have to do to a mold is overheat and deform it or crack it. Way easier and super easy to verify it. Suggesting someone dispose of it in concrete sounds like something the mafia would do.
I for one am glad the FBI was able to get Mafia mold crackers under control. I’m afraid the Mexican cartels may have taken over that business in recent years.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#103A little local color from a resident of Virginia (Charlottesville): Late last year Virginia's Governor Youngkin took significant heat in the legislature and media for quashing a Chinese battery factory that was set to locate in the state. https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/01/12/youngkin-halted-f... https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/democrats-call-out-... He said that supporting China's venture was not in th…
I'm just glad that we're bringing LEGO manufacturing back to the US. For too long US builders have been subject to the geopolitical risks of Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary, China, and Mexico. This is a strategic raw material, without which trains, helicopters, fire engines, pirate ships, and hospitals cannot be built. To say nothing of the dependence that US media IP has on continued fresh brick availability. I…
I heard the pirate shipbuilding unions are celebrating.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#104I grew up in this tiny town of Chester, Virginia and moved to Silicon Valley after college. Seeing this factory and my hometown at the top of Hacker News is blowing my mind.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#105Funny how nobody mentions plastic pollution, which is the main output of this factory.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#106It will be the first US Lego factory in a while, but here is some history: > The first LEGO factory in Enfield opens in 1975 – a packing facility for LEGO DUPLO® bricks. The elements to be packed arrive from factories in Billund, Denmark, and Baar, Switzerland – transported to the US in container ships. > The Enfield factory is constructed as a “conversion ready” building with open steel structures which can quickly…
I came here to say this- I toured the Enfield facility, as LEGO sponsored my robotics team. They had a whole manufacturing setup there. Everyone was kind of pissed that they closed it when they did.
The same thing happens in reverse quite frequently. Tandy/Radio Shack comes to mind as a particularly nasty episode (gear received the day before they closed for warranty claims just disappeared because they didn't tell customers they were going to close). Ford had some factories close in different EU locations and many other examples besides, usually for reasons of tax venue shopping.
Large companies don't care about employees one way or another, if you're lucky you're a row in a spreadsheet somewhere and woe to you if your row, the column where you're totalled or the entire sheet ends up in the red.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
And honestly the pieces aren’t even that easily reproduced. Our son got a knock off brand as a gift and it was horrible to build compared to a LEGO set.
This is actually a trade secret of lego. They build to such tight tolerances that others cant compete in the interlocking... it is a known thing of theirs, and honestly - we should be building that into actual construction mediums
They also have the exclusive patent for the raised dots being slightly dome/cone shaped so any competitors are doomed to be worse no matter how well made.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#108Interesting learnings for me from this article: - Lego operates multiple $1B+ factories around the world - they are not just a design and marketing company - 1400 manufacturing jobs in Virginia expected - not just an automated thing. Anyone know what changed economically to justify the high US labor costs? Particularly compared to MX - 100% Carbon neutral via on-site Solar in Virginia (not particularly sunny). No off…
Plastics - where are they cheap? That is the answer.
The plastics cost are relatively low for this product compared to many other products made of plastic. Lego is first and foremost a marketing machine (which they excel at) before they are an injection molding specialist (which they also excel at).
They've had their ups and downs over the years but the value add on 1 KG of ABS to sell for >> $200 is such that the plastic bit is almost an afterthought. Without the StarWars franchise and discovering adults rather than kids as a market Lego would be in an entirely different position today.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#109Funny how nobody mentions plastic pollution, which is the main output of this factory.
Given that Lego lasts for decades and that my kids are still playing with bricks that were sold in the 60's of the previous century the pollution part is a bit overblown. But yes, some of it will end up in landfill, but not nearly as much as you might think compared to say plastic bags, tie wraps and other large scale plastic products.
Re: Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I came here to say this- I toured the Enfield facility, as LEGO sponsored my robotics team. They had a whole manufacturing setup there. Everyone was kind of pissed that they closed it when they did.
The same thing happens in reverse quite frequently. Tandy/Radio Shack comes to mind as a particularly nasty episode (gear received the day before they closed for warranty claims just disappeared because they didn't tell customers they were going to close). Ford had some factories close in different EU locations and many other examples besides, usually for reasons of tax venue shopping. Large companies don't care abou…
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