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PC Manufacturing Plant (Online Auction, Greenock)  

Important Sale by On-Line Auction - 450 Lots! Bid Live Now !!
Closing - 12 Noon Friday 10th July*

Former IBM PC Manufacturing Facility in Greenock

Surplus Utility Equipment - Generators, Switchgear, UPS Systems, Compressors, Pallet Wrapping & Handling, Air Handling Equip, Speed Doors, Site Container, Catering Equipment, Floor Cleaning Equip, Large Qty of Various Office Furniture, Computer Components Cabinets & Snooker Table

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Certain memories come to mind with that one.

When the original site was split and sold off (forget when, say 10-ish years ago) one of the "problems" was that one half was separated by the other from access to the water main.

In order to get a water supply, huge excavations and water tanks had to be installed at a cost of many millions of pounds.

As a result, the new owners appeared to be keen to make cost saving.

"Our" services became one of those casualties, however another was the ending of the Quality Management System IBM had in place. The new company basically took an aggressive stance and said its own systems were adequate. This is perfectly acceptable, but you must have your own staff and documentation in place to support it - they didn't. We wished them well, and said we'd watch with interest to see how long they stayed in business, as one of the key factors in winning contracts in that business is the existence of an approved and audited formal Quality Management system meeting the relevant published ISO standards.

They didn't last very long.

I couldn't recall the office I was standing in when looking at the site waterworks mentioned above, but it was Sanmina - no wonder that didn't pop up in my vastly empty head!

Guess that IBM kept the mains water supply and didn't want any connection with Sanmina after they bought their part of the site, hence their need to have a water supply piped in, from the mains, even though there had been a connection though the IBM system, IBM pulled the plug.

Here's a better summary of what happened at IBM, courtesy of Ben Cooper's site, complete with photos:

IBM built it's first factory in Spango Valley, Greenock, in 1951; initially making typewriters, printers and other office equipment, the factory began making PCs in 1981. As production of these shfted overseas, IBM Greenock shifted to making servers and laptops.

IBM sold much of it's hardware manufacturing to Lenovo and Sanmina, who ran the plant in Greenock until 2006 before pulling out and shifting production to Hungary. 2000 IBM employees still work at IBM Greenock, mostly in a call centre, but the huge manufacturing halls stand empty.

This site is absolutely huge - several football-pitch-sized halls, some on top of each other, linked by enormous corridors and 4.5km of conveyors. I walked over a kilometre end to end - much further with all the diversions. It felt strangely familiar - a long time ago, I was a mainframe systems programmer for IBM...

IBM Greenock - exploration