Raspberry Pi moves manufacturing to the UK

This is great news for RPi team and for uk manufacturing. I've been saying for over a year now that if there is a reasonable level of automation then there is no reason why china should be cheaper than the uk.so long as you can maintain a robust supply chain of components (I should think using a sony facility is beneficial to this) then it can work out great.<p>We priced our product for uk and china and china was infact more expensive because of the way they price plastics. Sometimes UK is best

I spoke with Raspberry Pi about this for a news story I wrote. They said this about manufacturing: "The temptation is always to push manufacturing to a low-cost region, but I think with the right attention to detail there's no reason British manufacturing can't compete in a global marketplace," Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi foundation told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "It shows that British manufacturing can be competitive." ( <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/raspberry-pi-manufacturing-comes-home-as-production-shifts-to-uk-7000003839/" rel="nofollow">http://www.zdnet.com/raspberry-pi-manufacturing-comes-home-a...</a> )<p>Are there similar moves underway in the US?

&#62; we had been unable to find a British manufacturer [...] who believed that the project would be enough of a success for them to risk line space for us.<p>I think that sums up current European attitudes to manufacturing and capitalism all too well, sadly. Note how they eventually ended up with a Welsh factory... owned and run by Sony.<p>And what does a supposedly business-friendly government do? Worry about building houses. Sigh.

Now I'm imagining Maurice Moss examining his frotzed Raspberry Pi board, finding the "Made in Great Britain" badge, and shaking his head in resignation.

With all of the manufacturing issues the RPi team has had, I can't help but think what a tremendous PIA building something reasonably sophisticated is.<p>Kudos to the team for taking on such a difficult and worthwhile project and putting up with all of the issues. Even if the RPi in and of itself isn't successful, it's definitely brought these kinds of small, cheap simply computers to the forefront of many minds and that's a good thing.

Hopefully this brings more control over the production by the RPi team. If something is going wrong, it's a lot easier to take a trip down the M4 (or the train) than it is to fly to China and sort things out.

Fantastic news and glad they have been on the case about this since day one.<p>Two things out of this whole affair that stand out are:<p>1) UK Manufacturing clearly needs a better way to make its services available so people can utilise them, the goverment should be helping in this area. Wales have done alot to promote manufacturing and probably has a fair chunk of the UK production, the whole of the UK should be made more aware of this local resource.<p>2) TAX on a made product compared to the bits to assemble said product. From the current standing it is more cost effective to make products outside the UK as apposed to buying in those parts seperately and in bulk and making the product localy TAX wise, this is again another area the UK goverment has to address.<p>But the reality of bring some types of manufacturing back localy, even if driven by some of the lesser reasons makes sence.<p>This all said I would love for a Pi with more ram and also love a couple of network ports, make a lovely firewall unit then without messing with USB network adaptors. I'd also like USB3. So with that in mind maybe there is scope for a model C and D, idealy a model you can upgrade a little bit more in those respective area's. But if I had to pick anything overall it would be a little bit more ram. But there is nothing stopping me making my own board and modifications (skills pending), like most out there probably thinking about. Open Hardware schematics on github and group effort - anybody aware of any plans or projects along those lines?

So happy they finally found a local factory, and one of great technical and "entrepreneurial" quality

Since the dawn of globalization and the post-Cold war era, a number of countries are getting slot marked into particular sectors like: China for manufacturing, US for design, software, German auto mobile, India for outsourced services etc.<p>But to have a thriving and healthy society in a country, the variety is important so that people can pursue different interests and are not forced to migrate because there is no high-quality work in that area in that country.<p>Only way to do this is to protect the domestic market from foreign investment and give some time for high quality local players to grow. Then open for competition. But if a second world government does it, it is blamed for not allowing reforms and accused of denying progress to its citizens<p>So now another way is opening up.<p>So it is good for China too if such things happen. If a bunch of high quality companies open up in stuff that UK is traditionally known for (financial services?) then the balance will be stuck.<p>I hope financial institutions like IMF, World Bank take such things into count and come up with measures to increase variety in every country. It will make life a lot better for a lot of people.

I don't understand this statement at all:<p>"Last year, when nobody had heard of the Raspberry Pi, we had been unable to find a British manufacturer whose prices per unit (especially at a point where we were thinking of sales in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands you’re seeing now) would work for us, and who believed that the project would be enough of a success for them to risk line space for us."<p>Who wouldn't take one project because they were afraid you wouldn't come back for more? Is business so hopping over there that people scoff at a $1M deal because you may not come back later for a $5M deal? Or, were you actually asking them to reserve production, but that you might cancel before it started?

Hopefully this will facilitate better placement and attachment of the c6 capacitor.

The biggest thing to take away from this isn't just they get to say made in Britain but that they've created an additional 30 jobs. Not only are they making a difference in encouraging people to learn from the hardware but they're also now creating another positive effect on society through job creation.<p>Not bad for a small, charitable business.

Does anyone know where BBC Micros were manufactured? Sinclair's ZX machines (and C5s) were made in Dundee.

Great news! However, it would be even better if everything were made in the UK. Would be nice if the US could follow suit. Unfortunately it usually isn't good for business. But I don't believe that the government should interfere with free trade to promote such things.

With robotics and 3D printing, we'll probably see a lot more on-shoring of manufacturing soon.