This happens at the company I recently retired from. At intervals of between five and ten years someone decides that R&D should either be centralised or that the development engineers should be closer to the factories. The people are the same people, the work they do is the same, but the location is different. The justification for centralisation is usually that there will be better communication between the development engineers and the justification for putting them in the factories is that they will be able to communicate better with the management and workers of the factories. The reorganization is always intended to have a valuable side effect. I could never understand why they don't go directly for the side effect.