An article in today's Wall Street Journal (B1) details the success of Hutchinson Technology, a company with four plants in southern Minnesota. Hutchinson manufactures most of the world's supply of the support arms used to hold the read/write head in hard drives. Most of its output is exported to Asia, where most hard drives are manufactured now.
Hutchinson relishes its remote location in rural Minnesota, and uses it as a competitive advantage. Hutchinson's products are highly sophisticated, and the company's leaders have considered moving some parts of the business closer to customers, but recognized it would also mean exporting their manufacturing processes and techniques. Their view is that they do not want to train workers in other countries on how they manufacture their products, as those workers could then quit and take that knowledge to other companies. Locating the business in rural Minnesota makes it much more difficult for brain drain and technology leaks to occur.