Kingston Factory Tour
Kingston invited us out to tour their facilities. Little did we know they are one of very few companies who actually have full manufacturing ability’s here in the states. Photography isn’t allowed at all normally but they did let us bring our camera in and snap a few pictures here and there.
First they showed off all of their locations around the world.
In their design office we were able to see what ram, SD cards, and USB drives look like mid manufacture.
We couldn’t show you the PC’s showing their PCB layouts but in the same room they have this dry erase board that looks like 50 kids went crazy on it. Believe it or not, their engineering team can understand everything that is going on there.
We couldn’t take any photos in any of their multiple testing areas but it’s clear that they take testing very seriously both during the design phase and after manufacturing.
They did let us get a couple shots from above one of their main manufacturing and packaging areas.
Next they took us into an SMT assembly line and explained how each machine worked. Unfortunately for us, they didn’t have anything being produced at the time of our tour. But we did get a couple overall shots of the entire line. They start with nothing and by the end of the line they can produce any ram or USB drive in their product line.
Preventing RMA’s is a big focus for Kingston, so much so that they actually have multiple patents on machines like the one pictures below to be able to burn in and test every single stick of ram that they manufacture. Not only does preventing an RMA save them a lot of money, but it also helps build the reputation that people expect from Kingston and there dependability.
Before we left we had to sneak out and take a picture with that gigantic red head out front. To top it off you get to see us in our factory smocks. As you can see with mine they don’t normally have fat guys around ;).
The most impressive part is we only got to see 1 ½ of their 5 buildings on this campus. This is considerably larger than any other manufacture we visited while in town.
