The Factory Of the Future; Little-Known Solectron Makes High- Tech Industry's Products
In a corner of a nondescript, red-brick building here are dozens of boxes emblazoned with Compaq Computer Corp.'s familiar red logo. The boxes contain printed circuit boards and related accessories for Compaq's high-end computer servers. The tops of the boxes show a return shipping location for Compaq at the address here.</br></br>But this is not a Compaq factory. Rather, it is one of 21 high- tech manufacturing plants that form the global manufacturing empire of a Silicon Valley company named Solectron Corp.</br></br>Most people have never heard of Solectron, or of the curious mix of state-of-the-art manufacturing systems and ancient Asian principles by which it operates. The name Solectron does not appear on any product.</br></br>What Solectron makes is nonetheless very familiar: cell phones, inkjet printers, personal computers and medical equipment that bear the names and logos of a virtual who's who of high tech -- International Business Machines Corp., Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Motorola Inc., Nortel Networks Corp. and others that would rather not reveal who is building their products.</br></br>"We are their factory," said Gary Fain, the Solectron manager who oversees the Compaq assembly line. "We've got their name on it, but they never touch it."