Intel’s man in Ireland sees a bright future for advanced manufacturing

JUST MONTHS after being elevated to become an Intel vice-president and general manager of the technology giant’s Irish operations, Eamonn Sinnott is a happy man.

Earlier this week, the world’s largest maker of computer chips topped the best year in its 42-year history with record quarterly revenues of $11.5 billion and announced it will invest $9 billion in plant and machinery in anticipation of an even better 2011.

Not long into our conversation, Sinnott reveals Intel Ireland will be a direct beneficiary of its parent’s good fortunes. The company is starting a “significant construction project” at its Leixlip campus that will support 850 building jobs for the next two years.

It marks a half a billion dollar vote of confidence in Ireland. Intel is hiring 200 staff in advance of the expansion, while another 300 existing staff have been seconded to other plants around the world to upgrade their skills.

“The company is gearing up for a very bright future and we are delighted to be participating in that from this little corner of Ireland,” said Sinnott.

Such a bright future was not assured 18 months ago. In summer 2009, Sinnott’s predecessor, Jim O’Hara, had to make 300 staff compulsorily redundant when the decision was made to close the factory that is now going to be upgraded.

O’Hara and his fellow executives, including Sinnott, who has been with the multinational since 1991, pressed the Californian company to locate a new project in the plant.

Retrofitting an existing building would be cheaper than starting from scratch and the Irish workforce has almost 22 years of experience delivering projects for Intel.

The $500 million will be just the start of the investment if Leixlip gets the nod to become a “technology node” for a new generation of microprocessors.

“We build some of the most sophisticated buildings in the world to build products that are certainly the most sophisticated electronic components on the planet,” said Sinnott, with more than a hint of pride.

As part of the campaign to get Intel chief executive Paul Otellini to give the nod to Ireland, the Leixlip plant entered and won the 2010 Intel Quality Award, a prestigious internal prize.

“We were able to convince Paul that he couldn’t go anywhere else on the planet and get a better deal than in Leixlip, on any metric you want to pick,” said Sinnott. “Whether it was cost, whether it was productivity, whether it was quality, responsive to customers, you name it.”

Despite the downturn in Ireland’s manufacturing sector in the last decade, Sinnott believes there are still opportunities in “advanced manufacturing”, not just in technology but in areas such as bio-pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

“We are all part of companies that, if you look at their balance sheets, are cash rich. As the worldwide economy goes well they are doing well and they are looking for expansion opportunities – that’s where Ireland should be competing.”

Although IDA Ireland has not yet provided support for the expansion, Sinnott believes the agency is “second to none” and points out that the much-travelled former Intel boss Craig Barrett identified the agency as exemplars of industrial development support “on the planet”.

While the view of Ireland from Intel headquarters in California is clearly positive, the EU/IMF bailout could not have come at a worse time as the newly appointed Sinnott was selling the country’s attractions.

“It got a lot of press ... and it didn’t help. The people I spoke to had a very mature view. They said show me a country whose sovereign debt is secure. There are states in America who have higher sovereign debt than we have. People have a measured view of it. What they want is a sense that their investment over the long haul is secure.”

He believes Ireland was right to stand by its low corporation tax rate and not just for selfish reasons. Corporate tax revenues were the only tax category that were positive compared to the projections for last year and Sinnott suggests we should actually be looking at cutting the rate to make inward investment even more attractive.

Despite 20 years with Intel, Wexfordman Sinnott still expresses enthusiasm for his job and the people he works with.

“There’s a feeling in here every day that you are involved in something that is changing the face of the planet that we live on. The fact that you came in here and put that phone in front of me to record the interview is just one small example of the pervasiveness of the kind of things we do and how it changes everyone’s life.”