Ford Motor Co.’s revolutionary “crystal palace” in Highland Park, MI, which perfected the moving assembly line and mass production in the early 20th century, is often heralded as one of the most important factories in history.
While that plant certainly deserves many accolades, an equal argument can be made about IBM’s operation in Poughkeepsie, NY. The mainframe computers and enterprise systems it has produced for decades are the backbone of cloud computing, e-commerce, online banking, social media and other attributes of the digital age that most people take for granted.