Why Apple products are made in China

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strawman

strawman

One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
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Yeah, that wouldn't happen in the US. And if we used robots it would take a week - minimum - for a technician to reprogram it for a new part or assembly technique.
 
strawman

strawman

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”
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A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.

“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”
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Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
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Interesting.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

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I remember watching "Gung Ho" and when that one guy yelled at michael keaton "I haven't seen my kids in a week!" I wanted to stick my head in the tv and remind him he was competing with workers who didn't "see their kids" hardly at all, ever... and their system was the only thing that put their company in a position to buy his floundering company and keep his pasty butt employed.

When it comes to manufacturing the west just can't compete.
 
Tress

Tress

You heard it here first, folks: GasBandit thinks China is the ideal that the US should strive towards.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

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Tress said:
You heard it here first, folks: GasBandit thinks China is the ideal that the US should strive towards.
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Hey, I'm all about grinding little people down into the insect drones they were meant to be. You always knew that, though, didn't you?
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
TLDR version: Because Chinese manufacturing isn’t merely cheaper, but also perhaps even more importantly, nimbler, more flexible, and faster.
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Now those are some interesting words to use...

But that's still working more for less pay...
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Something to ponder about when it comes to a working economy not reliant on slave labour: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/26-3


GasBandit said:
There's a great deal that foxconn city can do that you couldn't do in America as quickly at any price.
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Only if you're sticking to the laws in place... and as that article shows, the plant itself denied it's that flexible because it's illegal in China too... well that and American not having enough people who would let themselves be used like that...
 
doomdragon6

doomdragon6

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I've actually had to design and navigate from China some custom items for our convention. The manufacturers we worked with really did reference all these other manufacturers that were "down the street" and worked with each other. We were able to get our stuff for 33 cents each, when anywhere else it would be well over a dollar. (Huge difference when talking in thousands of a product.)

China's ridiculous, in other words.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
So we are agreed, the will of the American people must be crushed for America to become great again! Let's get to work!
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Or you could do it the old fashion American way and exploit immigrants (or import your own slave labour again)...
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Did that have to do with them being immigrants, or being jews?
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Yeah, it was totally the baby eating... also why we had no problem with arabs, gypsies, people of other denominations, anyone not aryan (including south europeans) and more or less anyone not of our ethnic background...
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

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@Li3n said:
Yeah, it was totally the baby eating... also why we had no problem with arabs, gypsies, people of other denominations, anyone not aryan (including south europeans) and more or less anyone not of our ethnic background...
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Europe's tendency to kill eachother alot every few decades or so aside, people were leaving these nations in droves to come to the US. Despite what you seem to be implying (there you go implying instead of saying again), the US was not the only possible destination for immigrants who wanted to find a better life... it was just the most obvious. Because it was better.
 
Adam

Adam

And then when they got to the US, they realized Canada was better, and all the cool people came up here - all 10 of them. ;)
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Europe's tendency to kill eachother alot every few decades or so aside, people were leaving these nations in droves to come to the US. Despite what you seem to be implying (there you go implying instead of saying again), the US was not the only possible destination for immigrants who wanted to find a better life... it was just the most obvious. Because it was better.
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Oh yeah, plenty also went to a penal colony... so what where the other choices again?
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

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@Li3n said:
Oh yeah, plenty also went to a penal colony... so what where the other choices again?
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Australia stopped being a penal colony in 1868. If the only reason people went to America was because it was the only choice, shouldn't ours have seen a dramatic drop around then?
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Australia stopped being a penal colony in 1868. If the only reason people went to America was because it was the only choice, shouldn't ours have seen a dramatic drop around then?
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Yes, it's like when you stop using a facility as a prison it becomes a luxury hotel the next day...

But the point is there where a lot more reason why people came to the US besides "coz we're awesome"... that's why plenty of people did go elsewhere...
 
ElJuski

ElJuski

Staff member
man, if making America "Great" again comes at the expense of the soul and humanity of it's denizens, fuck being great, I'd prefer being decent.
 
Covar

Covar

@Li3n said:
Yes, it's like when you stop using a facility as a prison it becomes a luxury hotel the next day...

But the point is there where a lot more reason why people came to the US besides "coz we're awesome"... that's why plenty of people did go elsewhere...
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I don't know I consider allowing people into a country regardless of their ethnicity to be pretty damn great. But hey, feel free to keep thinking that being horribly intolerant and exclusionary was/is a good thing.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Tress said:
Considering your piss-poor grammar, vague posts, passive-aggressive horseshit, and inane babbling, it's hard to tell exactly what you're saying anyway.
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And obviously the answer is to infer hating immigrants is something i admire... because i don't talk good... heh.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
GasBandit said:
When it comes to manufacturing the west just can't compete.
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Oh wow this is so completely wrong.

First off the chinese model is completely unsustainable because of the massive environmental and human rights issues going on there right now. The wealthier they get the more serious and unignorable these issues become. They are already seeing their industrialization get targeted by regulations. They are going through their gilded age, but it won't last for the same reason ours didn't.

Second off the comparison to Japan is interesting because of the current state of their economy (lolwut we should have listened to our central bank and not let our currency get so expensive), but more importantly because of their proffesional culture. The salaryman cutlure there is absolutely fascinating, particularly how they interact with their superiors and foreign customers. To say they are liars isn't correct, but there is a complete acceptance there that what you say doesn't have to be what you mean. For instance if an american client comes in and says "Hey I need these technical specs on my desk tommorow" and the salaryman responds with "Yes of course" there's like a 20% chance you will ever see that work.

American proffesional culture is actually a massive strength that we have in any industry, including manufacturing. We don't care about offending people, we just want the work done. That's actually quite unique.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Necronic said:
Oh wow this is so completely wrong.

First off the chinese model is completely unsustainable because of the massive environmental and human rights issues going on there right now. The wealthier they get the more serious and unignorable these issues become. They are already seeing their industrialization get targeted by regulations. They are going through their gilded age, but it won't last for the same reason ours didn't.
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I only meant from an "as things are right now" standpoint. Speculating too far into the future is pointless... nuclear war, economic collapse, or huge deposits of Unobtanium beneath montana could all change the whole game at any time.
 
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