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Dell Announces Plans to Expand Plant in Forsyth County, North Carolina

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 00:00 CST

By Richard Craver, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Mar. 7--Dell Inc. has decided to expand production at its new Forsyth County plant to include the assembly of servers beginning in the second half of 2006.

The company expects to have about 200 employees involved in producing thin servers, which will be geared mostly toward businesses, Travis Simpson, the vice president of North Carolina operations for Dell, said yesterday. "We're still working out a lot of the details right now, but the expansion will involve adding new equipment and new employees," Simpson said. Dell assembles servers in Austin, Texas, but not at its operations in Nashville, Tenn.

Hiring is expected to begin this summer. Simpson said that the employees would be part of the 1,500-job commitment over five years that Dell made toward being eligible for up to $304 million in state and local incentives.

The company has applications available at the plant at 3200 Temple School Road.

The company has more than 700 employees handling the assembly of personal computers. Company officials said that the plant had space to assemble other products if warranted by demand. Simpson said that the plant is using about 40 percent of its 500,000 square feet of production space.

"We continue to look at ways to maximize the benefit of this plant for our customers, our shareholders, and employees, and the addition of server production is a good step for this plant," Simpson said.

The decision to add server production comes at a time when desktop and notebook computer sales are slowing industry-wide domestically and prices are continuing to drop, affecting computer makers' profit margins. Dell reported recently that sales of its servers and data-storage equipment are doing well.

Richard Hunter, the vice president of the company's Americas manufacturing and distribution operations, said in November that local employees have "nothing to worry about" regarding business and consumer demand for desktop computers. Because the Forsyth plant is Dell's most efficient and lowest-cost producer of desktop computers, "why wouldn't we run this plant hard?" Hunter said.

Simpson said that the plant is "right on pace" with the ramp-up of producing desktop computers.

Gayle Anderson, the chief executive of the Greater Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, said, "Dell remains very entrepreneurial even at its size, so any time they can add to the product mix is to our advantage, hopefully keeping their plant here growing and Dell adding local jobs."

Simpson said that Dell would post internally job openings for the server production, and that wages would be in the same range of $9.50 to $14 an hour paid to employees assembling desktop computers. "The skills are somewhat similar for building a server compared with a PC, just different techniques, and we will work within the same team-building format for production," Simpson said.

Simpson said that Dell plans to add a second eight-hour night shift in April running Monday through Friday. It already has a 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. shift Monday through Thursday and from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

All shifts will assemble desktop computers and servers, he said. Dell has no plans to add such other production at the plant as notebook computers or flat-screen televisions, Simpson said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

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DELL,

Source: Winston-Salem Journal

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