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Raspberry Pi Production Heats Up In UK Surpassing Chinese Production Soon

Posted by samzenpus on from the cranking-them-out dept.

hypnosec writes "The majority of $35 Raspberry Pi production was shifted to a factory in Wales from China and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced this week that the factory in Wales has produced its half millionth unit in just over six months. The weekly production has shot up to 40,000 units in the UK factory and that number is 'set to climb further.' The Foundation is optimistic about the Welsh factory and said there will be 'more Made in the U.K. Pis in the world than their Made in China cousins.' The Foundation didn't reveal anything else apart from this, but we already know it sold the millionth Pi back in January."

23 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Subsidised? by robpow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So how come it can be done in the UK and still sold at the same price? Either there's a subsidy in place or the manufacturing cost is a negligible part of the selling price.

    1. Re:Subsidised? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      well.. that price is without vat, so the time I could buy it the price is 48 euros. they don't pay license fees for codecs(that's extra) and so on. and the production is probably fully automated. you might have worse luck sourcing the parts at their pricing though but I'm pretty sure the chip companies aren't doing this as a charity..

      once there's no manual labor involved then assembling them is pretty much the same regardless of where it happens if scale is big enough(that automation can be done).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Subsidised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      IIRC they wanted to manufacture in the UK originally, but at the volumes they planned it wasn't possible to do at the target price. Since it as a huge success and sold in quantities beyond their wildest dreams it became possible to manufacture in the UK. So the short answer is volume!

    3. Re:Subsidised? by MLCT · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The days of everything being far (i.e. an order of magnitude) cheaper to make in China than the west are slowly coming to an end. There is still a price advantage ATM, but it is eroding, and parity exists in some areas, and there is an actual price advantage with western labour in a few situations.

      There was a documentary on UK TV last year that looked at a cushion factory which was seeing parity between its Chinese and UK plant - and this is sowing and stuffing cushions, not making high value goods:

      The Town Taking on China

      Basically wage costs are rising fast in China, coupled with a labour force that shops around constantly to get the best deal, playing factories off against each other (that leads not only to higher wage costs, but also difficulty in skill retention). Skill retention may not mean much when it is sowing cushions, but there is always a learning curve for efficient work, and poor retention impacts on productivity. The third string in the bow is shipping costs - the price of fuel has quadrupled in the last 15 years.

      All of these things add up. The good thing is that some basic manufacturing jobs will move back to the west rebalancing the economy - the bad thing is that most manufactured goods will jump back on to the inflation conveyer belt again - after ~20 years of their cost being frozen while our pay still rose at 3-5% per year - they will be back in step again as China starts to level out with the west on living standards.

    4. Re:Subsidised? by jrumney · · Score: 4, Funny

      There was a documentary on UK TV last year that looked at a cushion factory which was seeing parity between its Chinese and UK plant - and this is sowing and stuffing cushions

      At a guess, I'd say the higher rainfall in UK would benefit any industry that involves sowing.

    5. Re:Subsidised? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      well.. that price is without vat, so the time I could buy it the price is 48 euros. they don't pay license fees for codecs(that's extra) and so on. and the production is probably fully automated. you might have worse luck sourcing the parts at their pricing though but I'm pretty sure the chip companies aren't doing this as a charity..

      once there's no manual labor involved then assembling them is pretty much the same regardless of where it happens if scale is big enough(that automation can be done).

      That's the deal - the Pi is sold pretty much manufactured by automated processes. Whether in the US, UK, China or anywhere else, all the effort is in setting up the machines and they spit out a fully assembled Pi.

      And that happens because the Pi is sold as a bare circuit board - no case or other frills - everything is mounted on the circuit board and wrapped up in an anti-static bag.

      When all you're going is taking the output of the pick and place machine, it's cheap. The hard part is in the casings - Steve Jobs and Woz realized this over 30 years ago when they moved from the bare board Apple I to the plastic-cased Apple II that "normal" people would buy.

      Of course, once you start putting cases on, it adds production steps and that's where the price differentials come into play. Setting up a human assembly line is cheap and agile - change a design and they can be retrained in a few hours and building your product in a new revised case. An automated assembly line is more expensive to set up and not so agile (they need to be programmed and overseen as slight variations can trigger failures in the vision system), but they're cheaper once everything is up and running as machines are cheaper than humans.

      There's not too much assembly work or even human hands touching the Pi required. Even testing can be automated using the right production test software.

  2. Re:The knighs who say UNIx by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    I believe that it would be more in line with the general spirit of the film if you called them "The Knights Who Say Windows".

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  3. Like to know more by LinuxInDallas · · Score: 2

    I have a couple RPis and they are useful learning tools but there is a lot more information that this group could spread to those to help the community. One of those would be why or how they are now able to move/transition production to the UK from China. It would be a great piece of information for the community to understand how they managed that so that others could benefit and perhaps do the same with their own projects.

    In general there must be a whole host of lessons learned that could be shared that would help someone else avoid the pitfalls these guys undoubtedly had to work through. I'm interested in the process in general such as choosing a manufacturer, how they went about going through the regulatory hurdles, etc. All the stuff you would want to know if you wanted to take a hobby project and make money on it.

    1. Re:Like to know more by Kingston · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think what happened was after the foundation complained that it couldn't find a suitable UK manufacturer they were approached by someone at the Sony contract manufacturing plant at Pencoed ( near Bridgend ) who had studied the board and calculated they could make it profitably at the foundation's target price.

      The Sony plant ( it used to be one of Europe's biggest TV plants ) takes on small production runs for third party designs. They had to introduce a new POP facility to manufacture the Pi there . There is quite a long article about the factory process here.

      Here is the story about the half a million Welsh Pi and a summary about move to Wales.

  4. Yep by goldcd · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2569

    More interesting question is around import duty. I think I read (possibly when last trying to work out where the f*ck my OpenPandora was) that there's different import duties on finished electrical good and components (these being more expensive). Even assuming assembly cost is the same, it means it always costs more to assemble in the UK.

    1. Re:Yep by Rakishi · · Score: 2

      How does the VAT work regarding something that's being exported?

      If you sold it in the UK you'd recoup the VAT from the components by the VAT the consumer pays you. What if you export to a country with no VAT? Do you need to charge more to offset the component's VAT?

  5. Amazing! by whizbang77045 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Amazing! You make something available people actually want, and they buy it. No hard push advertising required!

  6. Oh Liz, arrogant arrogant Liz... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I remember posting a comment on Raspberry Pi's forums suggesting that they also offered an UK or even EU-built raspi, even if the price was higher than what they charged for the chinese version. In reply to that suggestion I received one of Liz's trademark sarcastic comments, along with insinuations that this suggestion was based on racism. That lead me to decide not to purchase one. Ever.

    Now lo and behold: EU-made versions are outselling Chinese ones. Does that mean Raspberry Pi users are packed with racists and bigots?

    1. Re:Oh Liz, arrogant arrogant Liz... by Kingston · · Score: 5, Informative
      I think I found your comment, it makes for a fun contrast. This week Liz Upton Said:

      Soon there will be more Made in the UK Pis in the world than their Made in China cousins. This is wonderful news for us; and it’s great news for Welsh manufacturing.

      but last year she told you:

      The Union Jack emblazoned, UK-only board for angry lunatics^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpatriots is a charming idea, but it's not remotely realistic.

      you told her:

      Finally, I'll say only this: if you want to curb the amount of arguments in this forum then you could at least try to tone down the propensity to post passive-agressive and provocative comments. It doesn't look well for a charity dedicated to an educational project to have its PR done by someone who is unable to have a polite and educated conversation. Take care.

      So she signed off with:

      I've had a better idea. I've removed your posting privileges, along with Sylvain's. My preferred sort of aggression is aggressive-aggression. Take care.

      I think we should all take care and put on out tin helmets.

    2. Re:Oh Liz, arrogant arrogant Liz... by rephlex · · Score: 2, Informative

      Liz can be just so incredibly abrasive sometimes. She once implied I was a lunatic when I complained about the Raspberry Pi's USB issues. How a person like her ends up doing PR is beyond me, although she appears to have done a good job with the media side of things.

  7. Sony by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They are producing in the Sony plant in the UK. How Sony does it, I don't know, but presumably they have come up with some sort of financial plan that includes tax breaks and possibly subsidization of some sort to get these produced in the UK at a competing price. Don't forget that import taxes for ICT equipment into the EU are quite hefty. Maybe substantially lower than on electronic components? What I know is that they got a price quoted by Sony that was more than interesting enough to commit to a large number of RPis made in the UK. That number was enough for Sony to re-tool the UK factory and get the special equipment required to mount the memory chips on top of the SoC. That was the main investment for Sony, since they didn't have anything that could do that part of the process. The rest was basically just rearranging existing equipment and staff for this production line.

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
  8. Apple shareholders all a little quite. by tuppe666 · · Score: 2

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    "Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
    Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,”"

    I think its about time Apple [and the media;shills] stopped making excuses if Sony can manufacture the Rasberry Pi in Wales!?

  9. Re:Any difference in where that thing was made ? by rednip · · Score: 2

    This thread would seem to prove you both right and wrong. Also some of the comments make recommendations on fixes.

    --
    The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
  10. Re:Any difference in where that thing was made ? by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 2

    If you cannot use solder wick properly then you aren't really skilled enough to be modding circuit boards.

  11. Re:The knighs who say UNIx by aztracker1 · · Score: 2

    We are now no longer the knights who say Metro... we are now the knights who say Window 8-style UI.

    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
  12. Re:You are just joking, right? by SB2020 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is pure misinformation, I have a RPi with an up to date OS and adequate power supply and it works just fine. I have used several keyboards and mice (wired, wireless) and never had a problem with USB.
    Ethernet has never dropped out - ever. The only real issues I've had are with SD card corruption when overclocking - taught me a bunch about repairing filesystems, data recovery and importance of backups.
    It's currently plugged into my TV running XBMC which it does adequately, it can be a bit sluggish but is still the best source I have for streaming HD content.
    I also use it for MAME and the the kids use it to play Minecraft which we've had fun programming in python using the API.
    Both me and the kids have learned more about Linux and general computing than we would have done without it, so I'd say they are meeting their goals for education even if 40yr old geeks weren't their intended audience.

    If it doesn't meet your needs, buy something more powerful/expensive but I'm pretty sure you may have to put some effort in to configure it for your needs, it doesn't sound like you have the mindset for that. Even my 8 year old now understands that there are limitations to a particular devices capabilities and accepts it rather than being a whiny brat like yourself.

    I'm quite happy with mine and intend to buy more for use as printserver for my RepRap, security cameras, greenhouse environmental control etc...

  13. 100% of Raspberry Pi SoCs produced in Asia by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 2

    Apart from the stacked CPU/RAM, the Raspberry PI could be sold as an assemble it yourself kit. All the key components are still produced in Asia, and will be for decades unless Wales wants to invest high-billions in new fabs.

  14. Re:One possible downside by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    No, not Linux. I'm concerned that people will start designing everyday product around an RPi because a) that's what they know how to use and b) it's dirt cheap. As a learning tool, it's pretty cool. My personal embedded development beefs come from a things like Linux SBCs not being designed as an appliance with a real power switch. I don't want to waste time waiting for it to boot nor do I want to have to remember to shut it down gracefully. I also have a problem with manufacturers not telling you exactly the process they used to build their toolchain and distro. Chances are that I want to make a change or two to the kernel or busybox or something.