Subject:
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Re: A VERY interesting article on the Lego Business
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Dec 2000 03:44:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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635 times
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In lugnet.general, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.general, Nathan McDowell writes:
>
> > I was wondering about one other point that the author made, he said
> > that LEGO has a factory in Switzerland and that it's prohibitively expensive
> > to produce things there. Then why not close that one and keep the factory
> > in the U.S. open?
>
> I believe (but am not sure) that the Swiss factory is a tool and die shop.
> That is, it doesn't produce parts, just molds for parts which are used in
> the molding plants worldwide.
>
> Switzerland has a reputation for producing some of the highest precision,
> rugged, and close tolerance tool and die work in the world. This was
> especially true 20-30 years ago when the factory was built, I believe.
>
> Closing the Swiss operation without a replacement would then completely
> cripple any new part production (or replacing molds once they wore out)...
>
> ++Lar
From reading the article again (a little closer this time) it says that the
Swiss factory is one of two main factories (from what you've said- tool and
die type factories) and from the article it looks like they are, in fact,
planning to 'tackle' the expense problem to meet their Fitness Program. If
they have a backup/secondary factory working already, I don't think it would
be *too* stressful to start up a third one somewhere else and phase out the
Swiss plant moving the one operation to another base. It's always terrible
when people loose their livelyhoods in moves like this but maybe they'll
find other work for their employees (*wishful thinking*).
From the article-
"Meanwhile, Lego has shed 1,000 jobs, a tenth of its workforce, to save £83m
a year. It has also streamlined its management teams from an unwieldy
structure of 15 different regions in Europe alone, each equipped with
individual personnel, finance and marketing departments, to just three.
There is also just one 15-strong global management team instead of five, but
the high manufacturing cost base has still to be tackled, with one of its
two main factories based in ludicrously expensive Switzerland."
I have know knowledge whatsoever about international business so I may seem
a little naive about these things, but that's ok with me =)
~Nathan
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: A VERY interesting article on the Lego Business
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| (...) I believe (but am not sure) that the Swiss factory is a tool and die shop. That is, it doesn't produce parts, just molds for parts which are used in the molding plants worldwide. Switzerland has a reputation for producing some of the highest (...) (24 years ago, 21-Dec-00, to lugnet.general)
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