Open days for manufacturing factories like Intel Fab

[parinjoy]

I just saw Linus's video on his visit to the Intel Fab. Obviously something like Intel and other high end manufacturing companies wouldn't let just anyone on their factory floors. But it would be nice if they have open days where they could take interested people for a sneak peak. Do you guys know any such chip or phone manufacturing who would do such open tours ? (LMG could have thier own office tours too or mabye *server room* tour.

[Bombastinator]

22 minutes ago, parinjoy said:

I just saw Linus's video on his visit to the Intel Fab. Obviously something like Intel and other high end manufacturing companies wouldn't let just anyone on their factory floors. But it would be nice if they have open days where they could take interested people for a sneak peak. Do you guys know any such chip or phone manufacturing who would do such open tours ? (LMG could have thier own office tours too or mabye *server room* tour.

Rubber neck tours have grown rare since the grandma’s cookies fiasco in the 90’s 

[porina]

Fabs are probably the most challenging since they have a load of sekret stuff going on, plus keeping the dirty visitors under control. It has to be worth their time to get PR value out of it.

 

General electronics manufacture could be more possible, although they tend to be concentrated in... more value countries. I've only ever visited the main manufacturing plant of a past employer, which was located in Mexico. Colleagues got to go to China facilities, but I never had that trip.

 

Trade events can get you some interesting things but not really manufacturing. For example, one trade event I went to included a trip to their own F1 car collection/museum. Maybe there would be more opportunities if you happened to work related to the manufacturing side already.

[DANK_AS_gay]

44 minutes ago, porina said:

Fabs are probably the most challenging since they have a load of sekret stuff going on, plus keeping the dirty visitors under control. It has to be worth their time to get PR value out of it.

Maybe for the lower end fab nodes, that are more rock-solid in terms of reliability, but even then, that would cost mondo money.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, porina said:

Fabs are probably the most challenging since they have a load of sekret stuff going on, plus keeping the dirty visitors under control. It has to be worth their time to get PR value out of it.

 

General electronics manufacture could be more possible, although they tend to be concentrated in... more value countries. I've only ever visited the main manufacturing plant of a past employer, which was located in Mexico. Colleagues got to go to China facilities, but I never had that trip.

 

Trade events can get you some interesting things but not really manufacturing. For example, one trade event I went to included a trip to their own F1 car collection/museum. Maybe there would be more opportunities if you happened to work related to the manufacturing side already.

Lots of places do.  The Grandma’s thing we’re vending machine cookies that were soft not crisp.  The entire industry couldn’t figure out how they were doing it, it was a timed tour open to the public so he signed up.  so some executive went on a rubberneck tour of their factory.  They were actually telling random people what they were doing.  Turns out the answer was a ton of shortening.  So he went back and promptly put them out of business.  Now anyone can make “soft-bake” cookies, but until surprisingly recently it was totally unknown.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Bombastinator

[LogicalDrm]

Not as "open-doors" for general public. Maybe if the facility would be build to have visitor center and some corridors with windows. But as most factories are built to serve one purpose, manufacturing, having any group visit will need much of planning and preparing. So most likely event to get to visit any factory or facility which does something more interesting, is with student group for University grade studies, researchers, investors or during some sort of summit/event for professionals.

 

I remember back in Uni some group got to visit "Onkalo", a tunnel built to store nuclear waste. They had to agree on background checks for any criminal or otherwise questionable history before they were even asked to sign NDA.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Not as "open-doors" for general public. Maybe if the facility would be build to have visitor center and some corridors with windows. But as most factories are built to serve one purpose, manufacturing, having any group visit will need much of planning and preparing. So most likely event to get to visit any factory or facility which does something more interesting, is with student group for University grade studies, researchers, investors or during some sort of summit/event for professionals.

 

I remember back in Uni some group got to visit "Onkalo", a tunnel built to store nuclear waste. They had to agree on background checks for any criminal or otherwise questionable history before they were even asked to sign NDA.

I do think rubberneck tours for most places could (and probably should) come back, but I can see limiting them