I hope you move your fab to somewhere in the middle of the country. Part of the appeal of your concept to me is speed, but now I'm looking at cross-country FedEx, which is so expensive that it makes your service unpalatable. A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.
While logistics and delivery (both inbound parts and outbound product) are a key factor, time and cost don't map linearly to distance. Rather than being exactly central, the optimal solve is often somewhat geographically central but leverages proximity to transport corridors, ports and other factors such as weather variability.
KCI isn't a central air hub and winter weather can disrupt flow. Being further south near an East-West hub like DFW can be better (or Houston if an Atlantic port is valuable). Or if bidirectional delivery is everything, base near a Super-Hub like Memphis (Fedex) or UPS WorldPort (Louisville, KY) and go all-in on reaching lower rate tiers with one preferred domestic delivery partner.
For high-automation physical plants, scale can tend to chunk into increments beyond which 'one double-size plant' isn't meaningfully cheaper than two 'single-size' plants. Then an optimal build-out end game can be East and West plants that are each one air-hop from all major metros on that coast and a one-day truck/rail hop from 50% of customers on that coast. If it's a rapid-turn tech product, Reno can work well - half-day road trip from bay area for outbound and a Pacific port for inbound (Stockton). I don't know the quick-turn PCB assembly biz but maybe basing across the street from Digi-Key's biggest distribution center is a 'checkmate' move that beats all other advantages?
>A plant in, say, Kansas, is a couple of days of UPS Ground from a huge portion of the country.
80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian, which bisects Kansas.
It's probably not best to optimize for the lowest maximum ship time in the lower 48, but something more weighted for population. Lowest average transit time. I would have guessed something like Nashville, TN. Claude is telling me Nashville is up there but Dayton, OH is the best. 14% <= 1 day, 46% reached in <= 2 days and 74% reached in <= 3 days. 2.83 average.
Compared to Kansas City, KS at 5%, 25%, 61%. 3.11 average.
This fab is in South Deerfield, MA which is 15%, 26%, 52%, 3.32 avg.
I guess population is also technically not the best measure. It would be better to measure the potential customers. Which is interesting because those are going to be skewed towards the coasts to some degree.
Maybe your Kansas suggestion is more correct than I thought. I'd still wager its more like the midwest than the plains though.
