A Chinese plant temporarily closed because of noxious odors wafting into nearby communities is spending millions to reopen. The Catcher Technology site, which produces 60 percent of unibody cases for Apple’s top-selling MacBook and iMac, hopes to reopen by November.
Catcher will spend $3 million to “modify the plant’s equipment and manufacturing processes,” according to the Taiwan-based industry publication DigiTimes.
If true, the report is good news for Apple and a rumored refresh of the MacBook Pro. Earlier this month, UBS noted the shutdown could cost the Cupertino, Calif. company by delaying production of the popular MacBook Air, as well as the PC industry’s Ultrabook alternative. Both use the Catcher plant and anxiously eying the calendar.
In order to prevent the bottleneck from reoccurring, Catcher reportedly is investing in more production sites, as well as increasing production at another plant in Taiwan.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
