@Christopher i'd be happy to spend a bit of time explaining European electrode Manufacturing as a service. in a nutshell, electrode manufacturing resembles the flexible packaging industry's business model catering to the food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries, in more than one aspect. Gigafactories in this context are an "Entremont Factory" producing it's own packaging materials for grated cheeses. Or Nestlé, coating, cutting and stamping alu-foil for coffe-capsules. OEM are good in automation, and assembly, not in conversion. Chinese operate in the same way, to launch product for example. They don't build a new Gigafactory for each iteration. And they come up with "new specs" every 6 months. None of these has Gigafactory volumes. There is one factory that coats (all chemistries, several coating lines) and there are several factories that assemble. The ratio coating to assembly can be 1 to 10/20 assembly factories, maybe even more. Metal-foil coating remains a speciality in Eastern and especially in South-Eastern Europe, while "pockets of competence" still exist in Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Germany. Why ? they didn't delocalize, because they are and remain "cheap". As an example the largest Tetrapak factory in Europe using coating and extrusion coating technology is in Serbia (Gornij Milanovac). It's important to note that they didn't bring it there, it was there, because ex-Yougoslavia, together with Eastern Ukraine, and some locations in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, where the Metal-foil conversion specialist's during the administrated economy. The "problem" with "Gigafactories" is 2fold a. all compentency fields must be aligned, to "resonate" for optimal yield. b. an authentic "cognitive-bias" -- our asian friends will let us make all the mistakes, and even some more. Let's meet, i can explain, show the rationale and show how splitting the Gigafactory can actually speed up the process acquisition, offer product design flexibility, without impacting quality negatively, on the contrary.
For most industries, I would agree, but some heavy industries are quite strategic and need to be locally produced. The current geopolitical tensions prove it.
@Christopher i'd be happy to spend a bit of time explaining European electrode Manufacturing as a service. in a nutshell, electrode manufacturing resembles the flexible packaging industry's business model catering to the food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries, in more than one aspect. Gigafactories in this context are an "Entremont Factory" producing it's own packaging materials for grated cheeses. Or Nestlé, coating, cutting and stamping alu-foil for coffe-capsules. OEM are good in automation, and assembly, not in conversion. Chinese operate in the same way, to launch product for example. They don't build a new Gigafactory for each iteration. And they come up with "new specs" every 6 months. None of these has Gigafactory volumes. There is one factory that coats (all chemistries, several coating lines) and there are several factories that assemble. The ratio coating to assembly can be 1 to 10/20 assembly factories, maybe even more. Metal-foil coating remains a speciality in Eastern and especially in South-Eastern Europe, while "pockets of competence" still exist in Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Germany. Why ? they didn't delocalize, because they are and remain "cheap". As an example the largest Tetrapak factory in Europe using coating and extrusion coating technology is in Serbia (Gornij Milanovac). It's important to note that they didn't bring it there, it was there, because ex-Yougoslavia, together with Eastern Ukraine, and some locations in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, where the Metal-foil conversion specialist's during the administrated economy. The "problem" with "Gigafactories" is 2fold a. all compentency fields must be aligned, to "resonate" for optimal yield. b. an authentic "cognitive-bias" -- our asian friends will let us make all the mistakes, and even some more. Let's meet, i can explain, show the rationale and show how splitting the Gigafactory can actually speed up the process acquisition, offer product design flexibility, without impacting quality negatively, on the contrary.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Heavy industry doesn’t have a place in Europe. European economies should focus on services.
For most industries, I would agree, but some heavy industries are quite strategic and need to be locally produced. The current geopolitical tensions prove it.
Thank you for the detailed information. This is really spot on and to the point
Thanks for your kind words and for reading it.