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The Making of a Motherboard at ECS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the under-the-hood dept.

sheiky writes "Hardcoreware.net has posted a look at the manufacturing process of a motherboard at a new ECS factory in Shen Zhen. Unlike most factories, they build boards from the ground up at one location, starting with the PCB all the way to a finished product. They also talk a little bit about the working conditions they witnessed in China."

27 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Chinese work conditions by seanadams.com · · Score: 4, Funny

    ECS uses the "Grape System" to remind their employees not to slack off. For each day, there is a grape. Green means they had a perfect day, with no problems with work or otherwise. If an employee slacks off or shows up late for work, they get a red grape.

    And I toil for what?!? Not so much as a raisin!

    1. Re:Chinese work conditions by gizmonic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps is more Americans saw their work as a source of pride instead of simply a source of income...

      And perhaps if companies saw their employees as assests instead of a cost expenditure aganist the bottom line, then maybe more people would care about the quality of their work. Back in the day when you went to work for a company at 18 and expected to work there until you retired, you did see a lot of pride in the work and company. But once companies shifted into that "you better thank us that you even HAVE a job" attitude, the workers attitudes shifted in response.

      Remember the day when you bought stocks because the return on your investment was the dividends paid by holding that stock? That's when people had pride in their work. As the value of stocks became the price of the stock itself instead of the dividends, companies began to see anything that cost money as a bad thing, and that includes employee's salaries. That caused a shift in attitudes towards the work force (ie, they are expendable if it we can achieve a higher stock price), which resulted in a shift in attitude from employees.

      Granted, I know that's an over simplification and leaves out a LOT of factors, but when you look at the big picture you can't deny the impact of this on the American workforce.

      --
      WWJD?
      JWRTFM!
    2. Re:Chinese work conditions by dal20402 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There has not been a comparable increase in output compared with the increase in wages and benefits

      You're right, although not in the way you want to be. Productivity growth in America has vastly outpaced wage growth since the '70s. This applies across unionized and non-unionized industry alike. It doesn't see a rocket scientist to see that the extra money has wound up in the hands of either shareholders or management (depending on how honest management is). Irrespective of the wage question, the productivity growth is what has kept our economy so healthy over most of the last 30 years.

      While economists can debate the question until they're blue in the face, there is a credible argument, which I believe, that wider distribution of productivity gains is better for the economy, because money distributed to poorer people is likely to get spent immediately. Beyond a minimum wage/tax subsidy floor, we clearly don't want to achieve that policy goal through regulation of salaries. The best way to distribute money from productivity gains fairly is by equalizing bargaining power and information between labor and investors. How do you accomplish that? Unions and collective bargaining.

      Unions are more necessary than ever if we want all Americans to share in the prosperity that their hard work has created through productivity growth. Just because we're not fighting against a 72-hour workweek anymore doesn't mean the basic reason for the existence of unions, to create equal bargaining power for workers, is any less desirable.

      With the theory out of the way, I'll address some of your bogus (and oft-repeated by people who have never belonged to a union) examples. I was a government-employed union transit bus driver from 2000 to 2005 (which was a job I loved, incidentally), so perhaps I can clear up some of the misconceptions.

      For example, some government workers get paid 40 hours when they only do 37 hours of work.

      It's true that some *salaried* government workers work only 35 or 37.5 hours. Their salaries reflect that; they are paid for 35 or 37.5 hours, not 40. As far as hourly workers go, there are some provisions in some contracts that allow a worker to pick up hours without working -- but those are there to guarantee the full-time worker an 8-hour day when it's administratively simpler (for instance, when a bus run happens to return to the garage after 7 hours and 45 minutes thanks to the schedule) for the government not to set up an eight-hour workday. The unions fought hard for that to prevent management from simply shrinking workers' days down to four hours or less. I don't know of any examples of employers otherwise regularly paying employees for more hours than they work -- why not just raise the hourly rate instead?

      Toll-booth workers get upwards of $25 an hour to stand there and hand out tickets.

      I can't find any toll-collector wage over $21 in the country. Most of them are closer to $16. It's dirty, repetitive, unrewarding, dangerous (people like to rob tollbooths) and potentially injurious (to hearing, especially) work. Most toll collectors don't hand out tickets (there are machines for that) but count money. Would you consider it progress if we paid them minimum wage, they couldn't afford decent housing anymore, and turnover in these high-accountability positions (lots of cash handled) were suddenly 200%?

      Government construction workers get paid somewheres around that same rate to stand around all day (honestly - do you EVER see these guys working?)

      Everyone whines about this. So why aren't you on a state road crew? The jobs aren't that hard to get. People complain, but when the chips are down they realize these guys have tough jobs.

      If you see a worker standing, it's probably because he's acting as a safety spotter for someone else you can't see. When you're dealing with heavy machinery and dangerous chemicals all day, it's worth

    3. Re:Chinese work conditions by jonin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's true that some *salaried* government workers work only 35 or 37.5 hours. Their salaries reflect that; they are paid for 35 or 37.5 hours, not 40.

      Sometimes it is even worse. I am a city employee (firefighter) salaried at a 40 hr week but have to work a 46.7 hr week. Granted I am supposed to have 6.7 hours of sleep at work but that never happens because we are one of the busiest stations.

  2. Dupe by Ramble · · Score: 5, Informative
    Bit-Tech did this over a week ago.

    http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2006/06/16/ecs_shen_z hen_factory_tours/1.html

    --
    "Oh boy"
  3. Was this article written by the Chinese? by x_man · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think ECS' employees take great pride in their hard work, even though they are getting paid very little in comparison to bloated unionized factories in North America.

    Yes, how dare those union workers try to get things like livable wages, child labor laws and health insurance. What were those silly Americans thinking?

    X

    1. Re:Was this article written by the Chinese? by contrapunctus · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I think ECS' employees take great pride in their hard work, even though they are getting paid very little in comparison to bloated unionized factories in North America.
      Yes, how dare those union workers try to get things like livable wages, child labor laws and health insurance. What were those silly Americans thinking?
      There was a show on PBS last friday about GM paying off workers to quit. One instance was a janitor (in a union) making nearly twice as much as me. I'm a college professor. Why did I go to school for so long?
    2. Re:Was this article written by the Chinese? by ettlz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As a Brit, I really cannot understand the crazy phobia (some) Americans have about unions and socialism. "Ooer! Reds!" Let's not forget these movements arose out of injustice. OK, so they got out of hand in the UK in the 1970s, but things are generally stable nowadays and we're not [yet] slaves to The Party. Many other west-European states have systems with a socialist slant, and they're not doing too bad either. Is socialism a dirty word, automatically equated with communism or something? Is it un-American to disclaim the class system, and ensure that one's neighbours do not starve or suffer ill-health?

    3. Re:Was this article written by the Chinese? by goofyheadedpunk · · Score: 4, Funny

      So you didn't have to be a janitor?

      --

      What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
    4. Re:Was this article written by the Chinese? by coldmist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, socialism is a dirty word, since it and communism have the same end goal, just different means of getting there.

      The problem with Unions, IMHO, is that they concentrate power, which in turn gets corrupted. Once a factory goes union, is there an option to "opt-out"? Do I have the "freedom" to not be union while my co-worker is? Since there isn't, that power tends to corruption. A classic example is teachers unions. The teachers are paid from property taxes (here in the US anyway), which they then pay Union dues. Then, if a lawsuit comes up, the state uses more tax money to handle a lawsuit which is being defended by money that came from taxes in the first place. The system just feeds itself.

      As a final point, you said "Is it un-American to disclaim the class system, and ensure that one's neighbours do not starve or suffer ill-health?"

      Well, the difference is we (speaking broadly here) would rather deal with a starving neighbor on a personal level through personal generosity and donations/gifts than to have the money taken by us through taxes, and then paid out to other people that might or might not deserve it or use it wisely. If I knew that an honest neighbor was starving to death, I would go to the store, by $100 worth of groceries for example, and give them to them. However, I would not do the same for a neighbor that is a drunk and is wasting his money on booze. What happens in socialized welfare is the government does not/can not make a distinction between the two and take $300 from me (the government programs are expensive to administer, right) and give $100 cash to each of my neighbors.

      See the reports about the money that went to Hurricane Katrina victims. See this article for a quick example: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-fema15jun15,0,1306432.story?coll=la-home-headli nes

      Ultimately, it boils down to the individual being responsible for ones own actions, having both the ability to succeed (like Bill Gates) and the possiblity of failure. You can't have one without the other. In a Union (at a factory level) or socialism/communism (a national level), a safety net is erected to prevent failure. The same mechanism also stunts success.

      --
      Don't steal. The government hates competition.
  4. Unions by tinrobot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    even though they are getting paid very little in comparison to bloated unionized factories in North America.

    Not to get on too much of a rant... but we can thank unions for a lot of things... like weekends off and decent salaries. Without unions, we'd still be working seven days a week in sweatshops.

    Sadly, China has no unions, so they do have sweatshops and low wages. I'd argue that China's workers would be better off if they did form unions.

    (and... before everyone here starts moaning about their employers, yes, I know many of you do work very long work weeks in the tech business. I've worked for several startups myself)

    1. Re:Unions by thelost · · Score: 4, Informative

      hardly surprising considering the whole article reads like a paid for advertisement and actually goes into little/no detail about the manufacturing process.

      --
      Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
    2. Re:Unions by NanoGriever · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >Also most of the workers are women, who are considered a 2nd class human in China,
      >the fact that they are allowed to work at all is a big step for them.

      You obviously don't know much about China and you just make stuff up.
      Chinese women have been working hard for years. How and where you got
      that idea is totally beyond me. May be you've mistaken China for some
      countries in the middle east?

  5. Scary... by ThinkingInBinary · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All of these motherboard factory tours (there have been a few) are pretty scary. We see the really cool equipment, and get to hear the tests each piece of hardware goes through, and then we hear about how their employees do really repetitive tasks, for low wages, with tough ("military-style"), if not abusive, bosses, in an insulting environment (the "grape system"?! What are they, kindergarteners?!?!). Sure, they're efficient, and the product is relatively cheap, but do we want to support the ways these companies treat their workers, even if it's "okay" with the workers?

    --
    ttuttle is a rankmaniac
  6. Slanted? by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think ECS' employees take great pride in their hard work, even though they are getting paid very little in comparison to bloated unionized factories in North America.

    They make it sound like a good thing! Unions get little credit (even in China) for the 40 hour work week, paid time off, or time off at all.

    1. Re:Slanted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You have to see it from the other side too. At United Parcel Service I saw firsthand how evil both sides are. I remember managers telling supervisors to do things that were just plain wrong. For example, packages would move down a conveyor belt at a particular speed. The guys at the end of the belt would need to wait an extra 3-5 minutes before packages started arriving to be loaded. For this reason, supervisors were told to stagger the start times of the back employees 5-10 minutes later to save a few dollars each day. This was so patently ridiculous but it was policy. Policy that was not always told to the employees. The reasoning was that they needed to be in their work area before start time and be prepared to load when packages arrived. In other words, work for free setting up for the first ten minutes because that's our policy.

      How about the union (Teamsters)? I visited a facility once dressed in a suit and tie (I was in IT). My job was to show employees how to work a bar code scanner for a new tracking system. As I was talking to the employee two large guys (also in suits) arrived and stood on either side of me. I picked up a Next Day Air letter to show how to scan (I thought they were managers checking my training procedure). Nope, soon as I touched the letter one guy shouts out, "What the fuck you doing? You're not supposed to touch packages." He tells me that he can shut down the entire facility in a second and that I shouldn't be touching packages. He's shouting two inches from my face. At this point the facility manager comes by and starts talking with the union guys to smooth things over.

      Management and unions (at least the ones at UPS) are just a bunch of pricks looking for money. They're both evil. The problem is that you let one group get the upper hand and it may be even worse (look at the current political parties in the US for a similar thing).

  7. ECS at Frys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work a Fry's Electronics. The rurmor at my store is is that ECS is owned by Fry's. I have never seen or heard anything to validate or disprove that, so take it with a grain of salt.
    Anywho, regardless of ownership, ECS products are the favorite things to sell at Fry's. From the ECS motherboards to their Great Quality branded computers and notebooks.

    As an employee in the service department (and thus, responisble for repairing computers when they fail) I can tell you the anything made by ECS is complete dirt. The GQ computers are not too bad, but I have never seen so many DOA motherboards in my life. We had a customer buy a mobo/cpu combo last week and his board was DOA. We ended up going though SIX (yes "6") more boards before we found one that would actually work.

    DO NOT BUY ECS PRODUCTS.

  8. Cheap labor makes it all go by Animats · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here's are pictures from a US manufacturer of PC boards. Notice how it's done. No long row of women putting in components; it's one guy standing around watching the machines do the work. Automated insertion machines put in the components, and transfer conveyors connect the machines. That's the way it should be.

    Only the really low wages of China make labor-intensive manual assembly feasible. Even in Mexico, you'd use automated assembly. Assembly in Japan has been automated for decades. If the US imposed import duties on very-low-wage countries that equalized wage costs to even $1/hour, this excessive "offshoring" would stop.

  9. bad boards by cdn-programmer · · Score: 4, Informative

    bad boards - how to recognise and avoid them

    http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html

    This section, however, is not about the normal variation in quality and reliability between typical motherboards. It is about plain old-fashioned greed, and the cheap, shonky boards that sometimes result from it. Here then, is a short gallery of the cheap, the nasty, and the outright fraudulent.

    To quote for the Red Hill web page:

    PC Chips fake cache 486

    Let's begin with the most famous of them all: the fake cache 486 boards that PC Chips produced in the mid-Nineties.

    ---------------

    From the PCCHIPS website we find: http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWeb/AboutCOMPANY/Abou tCOMPANY.aspx?MenuID=8&LanID=2

    PCCHIPS has been a leading supplier of motherboards and PC peripherals since 1994. We are committed to provide products of superior value and exemplary customer service to our customers worldwide.

    http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWeb/Legal.aspx?MenuID =8&LanID=2

    The materials ("Materials") contained in this web site are provided by Elitegroup Computer Systems Co., Ltd. ("ECS") ...

    I think these quotes speak for themselves.

  10. Worker's Paradise by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The last page has the completely naive part about working conditions. The reviewer, Carl Nelson, has no way to know whether the redfaced employee was just embarassed at their bad day report being photographed, or whether there are severe punishments. China's mafia government executes people for software/content piracy, among other fascist means of keeping people in line with their "discipline". They routinely torture people for interfering with official government policy.

    (FWIW, I'm not comparing China to the US or elsewhere, where there is also too much torture and executions, for whatever reason. There is no relativism that justifies torturing people, certainly not over economics.)

    The first page has the claim that "Pretty soon every computer you buy is going to have an ECS motherboard in it!" Although that's probably just wrong, it shows how naive is the reviewer about the real world outside motherboard specs. If it were true, I'd be worried about a single company, a single factory (which can halt or be destroyed) representing a single point of failure for every computer in the world, or even (especially) in the US.

    That article is about as analytical as a videogame review. That is, not at all, after being bought off by a free trip to the factory where their toys get made.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  11. Been there, seen that by EMacAonghusa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been to some of those factories in Shenzhen, been down around the manufacturing lines too. So here's a few general observations based on my own experiences - First thing that struck me is that this guy managed to get photos! The places I visited even our mobile phones were taken from us before we entered the manufacturing area, we'd be in deep shit with security if we pulled out a camera to take pictures. You'll also notice pictures of products there ... majour security breech in my opinion! - Secondly look what they're making, look at the cleanliness of the place. It's the reason many western countries are in trouble ... because in China they have the skills to make high-end products and they can do it cheaper and faster than the rest of us. Plus they are very highly motivated and their entire philospoy seems to be to get as much work from everywhere as they can, even if it means making a loss ... anything to take the work from us. That's why everything from the Playstation to mobile phones to the iPod is produced in China. - About working conditions ... China is one place you do NOT want to work. Workers do seem to be treated fairly well however they are not paid much, if they are not on specific shifts then they will work VERY long hours, even through holidays and very often through the whole weekend. Many of the places they live are really shit by western standards. Also, the working environment itself is often cramped. Much of the work is manual and there is little or no variation to it, so it's likely to make you brain dead after a while. Another thing that stinks is that you'll often find employees from Taiwan working there .. they will always be on a higher salary than the local Chinese, even if they are doing the very same job. Nice people though, they put up with a lot of shit.

  12. Union Mafia bastards! by mobby_6kl · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since everyone else here decided to skip all the boring talk about the technology involved and jump right into a flamewar, I hereby submit my contribution.

  13. Union bashing scab... by gorehog · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Some people may question the working conditions in China. Well, there's a lot to question about human rights in China, but I won't get into that rant here. I can say from what I've seen, that the employees at ECS are efficient and hard working, but I don't think they are put through abuse.
    Followed by...
    Employees can work an 8 hour shift if they want, but most opt to work a full 12 hour overtime shift.

    Ever try working 5,6, or 7 12-hour shifts in one week? That's 60-82 hours in one week. Sevceral weeks in a row? And thats not considered abuse? What am I supposed to call it? Opportunity?

    And then there's this tidbit...

    There are several benefits and bonuses available for those who perform well, and housing is provided as part of their salary.

    I'll take for granted that the reward system is voluntary by the employer so as to keep the workers "motivated" and "guessing" about what their work is actually "worth". I am also sure that the quality of housing is not in line with that of an American Union worker who puts in a 60-82 hour workweek. And, I'll bet that the housing cost is figured in as part of their pay. We used to do this to coal miners in the USA, where they would go live in a house they rented from the company they worked for and bought their groceries at the company store. It's one of the reasons that Appalachia is so isolated from the rest of the USA culturally. Because the coal mines were in such remote places they had no other opportunities and as a result got locked into a cycle of employed poverty for generation after generation.

    And finally, I live in Poughkeepsie NY. Right near the heart of traditional IBM hq. We have chip fabrication ALL OVER this region with NO UNIONS involved. Where are the bloated union electronics factories he speaks of?

  14. A number of separate issues are being fudged... by ofcourseyouare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A number of separate issues are being fudged in some of these posts...

    Q1: Are working conditions in countries such as China perfect by our standards?
    A: Obviously not, too strict.

    Q2&3: Are working conditions good enough by their standards? Are working conditions better than, for example, working on a peasant farm?
    A: Yes, otherwise why would they work there? There's plenty of peasant farms in China -- people are leaving them in droves.

    Q3: Will working in such standards help raise the wealth of China so that in years hence they can afford to have our standard of living -- along with real unions, health care, etc.
    A: Yes - globalisation in East Asia has brought about the greatest mass liberation from poverty in the history of the planet. For interesting data, check out:
    http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/
    Click on Human development trends 2005 NEW !

    Q4: How would China be without globalisation?
    A: Check out Burma or North Korea, both of which are following their own roads to paradise.

    Q5: Is the rise of such factories a challenge to labour in developed countries?
    A: Yes of course - globalisation is not a zero sum game -- it does make all coutnries better off -- but jobs will go where they can be done cheapest. And that does include a lot of skilled tech jobs.

    Q6: Is the rise of China accompanied by extra pollution?
    A: You bet.

    However, I believe it's worth it overall -- a country as big as China is never going to be raised from poverty through our charity. It needs industry. This will be accompanied, as it was in the West, by pollution, and also by job losses. But everyone reading this has reaped the benefits of industrialisation (computers don't grow on trees), now it's their turn.

    1. Re:A number of separate issues are being fudged... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      However, I believe it's worth it overall -- a country as big as China is never going to be raised from poverty through our charity. It needs industry. This will be accompanied, as it was in the West, by pollution, and also by job losses. But everyone reading this has reaped the benefits of industrialisation (computers don't grow on trees), now it's their turn.

      You may believe that. I'm sure you do. But all I know is that I'm earning a lot more than I was when I entered the work force twenty-six years ago, yet have less buying power than I've ever had, and frankly don't perceive a future that's anywhere near as bright as you seem to make it. Sure, globalization may not be a zero-sum game ... but the net effect, at this point in time, is a massive transfer of wealth from the West to the East. That's just the way it is. And if you were to ask me if I'm happy about the ongoing decline in the United States' standard-of-living due to the destruction of our domestic industries by Chinese imports ... well no, I'm not, particularly. Japan started the process with our consumer electronics manufacturing, and now China seems poised to finish it with everything else. The article said it quite clearly: they'll do anything if it takes the business away from us. About the only thing in that article with which I agree, frankly. And your overweening concern for the plight of the Chinese worker is almost endearing but the reality is that China and the United States are locked a brutal economic struggle. China, for a number of reasons (first and foremost the remarkable ethical lapses exhibited by our various Captains of Industry and their paid government officials) is winning, and the outcome for the U.S. population will be serious.

      I've heard too many people carry on about the supposed benefits of what is variously termed "globalization" or the "global economy". I have yet to see any of these mythical benefits, in fact, so far as I'm concerned all that is happening is just an example of involuntary foreign aid from the United States to China. So be it. But don't try to sugar-coat what is really going on. China is not interested in economic competition with the United States. It wants to eliminate the U.S. from the world scene as a viable competitor.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    2. Re:A number of separate issues are being fudged... by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Q2&3: Are working conditions good enough by their standards? Are working conditions better than, for example, working on a peasant farm?
      A: Yes, otherwise why would they work there? There's plenty of peasant farms in China -- people are leaving them in droves.

      It's worth noting that this isn't an automatically safe assumption. Much of Africa, right now, has a huge influx of people from the farms to the cities, but there is little or no economic growth (often there's profoundly negative growth instead), and it doesn't seem increased job opportunities or quality of life are driving it at all. It also doesn't seem to be driven by agri-business taking over land formerly held by families, or any of the other causes usually cited in other cases. The same goes for parts of South America.
              One guess is that African urbanization is being driven almost totally by non-economic factors, such as fear of mercenary bandit forces invading rural villages. This is a very real risk in some places, but also an incredibly overhyped risk in others where it is geographically unfeasable and not historically seen, yet waves of rumors seem to spring up from nowhere, and people respond to them in states of near panic by moving to the citys even with no prospect of employment or socal services.
                China, and most of Asia, seems to be roughly following the model of the west, where flight to the urban centers is at least sometimes driven by desire to better oneself. However, they also have concurrent pressures the 'first world' didn't. In the US and Europe, we had songs and jokes (How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paris?) ever since the 1910's, while big Agribusiness presures lagged that by 50 years or so. In China, the two are nearly running in sync.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
  15. BS! by mangu · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Automated insertion machines put in the components, and transfer conveyors connect the machines. That's the way it should be.


    You mean, like this? Do you think these people make less than $1/hour? Do you think this kind of work is done by robots in the USA?


    Why don't you try to learn something about a subject before posting? You have no idea of how electronic manufacturing is done, either in China or US or Mexico or anywhere. Placing SMDs is never done by hand, no human being, regardless of salary, can place them with the needed precision in an assembly line. OTOH, there are many types of tests and inspections that need to be done by humans. Current artificial vision systems, for instance, are too unreliable to locate many types of failures that people see at a glance.