Posted on 09/05/2020 7:22:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Take a look at the back of the box from which you unpacked your iPhone and you'll see this: "Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China."
Reading this tagline might trigger a vision in your mind of Jonathan Ive, Apple's legendary chief design officer, dropping the drawings and technical specs for the next-generation iPhone into a (highly secure) shared folder that its low-cost suppliers in China can access as they manufacture and assemble the product by the millions.
But as Apple CEO Tim Cook recently pointed out, this picture wouldn't tell the entire story of how an iPhone actually gets made today, or why Apple prefers to make them in China. At the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou in early December (my firm, McKinsey & Company, was the Knowledge Partner), I listened to Cook as he explained why Apple continues to favor China as its central base for manufacturing iPhones:
The number one reason why we like to be in China is the people. China has extraordinary skills. And the part that's the most unknown is there's almost two million application developers in China that write apps for the iOS App Store. These are some of the most innovative mobile apps in the world, and the entrepreneurs that run them are some of the most inspiring and entrepreneurial in the world. Those are sold not only here but exported around the world.
Highly skilled software developers developing apps for the App Store are one reason Apple likes to be in China. But the depth of highly skilled labor in the manufacturing space is why Apple makes its iPhones there:
China has moved into very advanced manufacturing, so you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, that kind of skill, is very important to our business because of the precision and quality level that we like. The thing that most people focus on if they're a foreigner coming to China is the size of the market, and obviously it's the biggest market in the world in so many areas. But for us, the number one attraction is the quality of the people.
Citing an example of the type of a highly skilled supplier Apple works closely with, Cook talked at length about recently visiting one company that it has collaborated with for several years:
I visited ICT--they manufacture, among other things, the AirPods for us. When you think about AirPods as a user, you might think it couldn't be that hard because it's really small. The AirPods have several hundred components in them, and the level of precision embedded into the audio quality--without getting into really nerdy engineering--it's really hard. And it requires a level of skill that's extremely high.
And the idea that Apple simply hands over the design to a company like ICT, which just manufacturers according to spec, is simply untrue, says Cook:
It's not designed and sent over--that sounds like there's no interaction. The truth is, the process engineering and process development associated with our products require innovation in and of itself. Not only the product but the way that it's made, because we want to make things in the scale of hundreds of millions, and we want the quality level of zero defects. That's always what we strive for, and the way that you get there, particularly when you're pushing the envelope in the type of materials that you have, and the precision that your specifications are forcing, requires a kind of hand-in-glove partnership. You don't do it by throwing it over the chasm. It would never work. I can't imagine how that would be.
Addressing the designed-in-California, made-in-low-cost-China impression that many people have--an impression reinforced by the tagline that is printed on every box containing a new iPhone--Cook had this to say:
There's a confusion about China. The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago. And that is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill, and the quantity of skill in one location and the type of skill it is.
And China has an abundance of skilled labor unseen elsewhere, says Cook:
The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.
Cook credits China's vast supply of highly skilled vocational talent:
The vocational expertise is very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said this is a key thing and we've got to correct that. China called that right from the beginning.
This article also appeared on LinkedIn.
Watch the entire interview with Tim Cook at the Fortune Global Forum:
My dad used to take us kids out to a pick and shovel job site to show us why we should get an education or develop a skill.
Made, maybe but not easily, unless they hired illegals. We simply don't have the numbers of available workers that would be qualified or willing for that matter. Well at least not before the latest import from China, with the full cooperation of the Democratic party, devastated our economy.
Ok, if we are able to manufacture sophisticated cars and planes here in the USA with all the intricate computerized chips that go into these vehicles, why would Tim Cook say that we can’t fill a room for tooling engineers?
I just watched a documentary called AMERICAN FACTORY last night.
The difference between the American and Chinese workers was substantial.
We were like that once.
One of the reasons they have football fields of engineers, is that they have 1.5 billion people versus our 350 million
the amount of people with the normal curve abilities to be able to master the knowlege required for engineering, would be about 4 times as many as in the US, and given that we have crippled a good half of our population with medicocre education, they are that much further ahead and we are that much further behind.
RE: The difference between the American and Chinese workers was substantial.
Can you share with us one or a few major differences between their workers and ours that makes it attractive to make things in China rather than here?
Yes, they are sterile when they are packaged. They undergo a final cleaning with industrial solvents that will kill almost anything. Plus, they are manufactured under clean room conditions at every step to prevent pollutants.
Look at Cook’s comments. What is missing from the responses the this article that is being quoted is the VENUE and AUDIENCE for which he is making these comments. “... not only here but exported to the world...” So where IS “here”? From the original article:
”At the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou (China) in early December ... I listened to Cook as he explained why Apple continues to favor China...”
The article is written about Cook’s speech delivered at a tech conference in CHINA, people. He’s talking to a Chinese audience, not to an American audience. Of course he’s going to lard it on for them to please their egos, telling them what they want to hear, talking to Chinese tech people and leaders about how important Chinese app developers are to Apple. This was a speech Cook gave on trip to China in early December 2019, currying favor with the Chinese tech leadership.
Use your brains, he’s marketing Apple to the Chinese, so he is not going to use talking points that are going to be positive to the US and negative to China in front of prominent Chinese tech and government leaders.
The fact is that only a very few Chinese apps break through into the rest of the world. They are mostly sold in the Chinese Apple App Store and some other Asian App Stores and except for a few games are not much of a draw in the rest of the English and other language speaking world. A few, such as TikTok and some games have made a bit of a headway, but they are the exception rather than the rule in the wider App Store in the world. Chinese Apps sell in China, and in Asia.
SHEESH. If Cook were in Ireland, he’d be saying the same thing about why Apple continued to be committed to having its European headquarters in Ireland...
Thinking now about the timeliness of an article about a speech given ten months ago in China. Why is it news now? What makes it newsworthy now?
It’s essentially a “Fear, Uncertaintly, and Doubt” (FUD) message, intended to raise negative questions about Apple such as these in this thread and in the AAPL market and about Apple products in the American market when Apple is about to introduce new products.
Given the timing of magazine planning for articles since Inc. is still a printed magazine, I think this article’s inclusion was planned about two to three months ago when it was expected that Apple was still going to announce their new line of iPhones in the third week in September. That would make publication of this Inc. article’s timing exactly right for the opening of the traditional FUD SEASON... three weeks or so before a major Apple event.
But Inc. could not have known that in mid August Apple would delay their announcement a month to late October, which would change the start of FUD Season to early October. Apple’s late change was too late for Inc. to change their magazine’s article line up and the FUD article was published a month early. Frankly, this Inc. article looks like a FUD duck, quacks like a FUD duck, and waddles like a FUD duck, so, my considered conclusion is that it is indeed a FUD duck article. Otherwise, what is it doing being published now, bringing up a ten month old speech?
It would if it were true. Try CNN they might have openings for fake newscasters.
The workers were faster, worked harder and were culturally more accepting of direction.
They did not need to be emotionally stroked, and were motivated and thankful they had work. They remind me of the workers of Late 1800s and early 1900 US.
They saw cause and effect and they were more careful workers with the product.
They were team orientd, quiet and not buffoonish.
WOW! So much ignorance and just completely WRONG information in just a single post... Can you get it any more wrong? Why don’t you try to get even more completely false information to post, Mo???
President Trump has made a huge difference in almost three years in a lot of that idiocy. Still more to do.
Don’t have to own any to know what they sell for and its features.
His product also required FCC approvals where apparently his design and plans were LEAKED to China before he could get his own into production due to the delays! Again, it was patented. The Chinese knock-offs of 2.0 were on the market in TWO MONTHS. . . And he was still an estimated nine months from opening his new V. 2.0 assembly line in California! Sales of version 1.0 tanked. He was facing imminent bankruptcy...And there you have it boys and girls. Truth spoken on an Apple flame thread.His only solution to remain in business? He tracked down the Chinese assembler of the pirated knock off, and contracted with them to make his genuine product, which they were able to start making in just two weeks. No regulations to meet, no government hoops to jump through, no required forms to fill out, just provide the design and circuit spec sheets and they met the exact specifications to the letter, using his exact parts and met his requirements at 1/2 the cost, completely packaged and ready to sell.
He was very apologetic but he wound up laying off three-quarters of his California workers, transferred the other quarter to sales, warehousing and shipping, canceled his applications with the state and federal regulatory agencies, and closed his factory. He had no choice. There was no way he could compete with all the regulations blocking him from getting moving. He was very bitter about it.
2. But for us, the number one attraction is the quality of the people.
Therein lies the true weakness of our nation today.. Our lack of vocational training and the bad attitude that our young folks exhibit today.
That attitude and lack of commitment to expertise is coming from the total failure of our education system.. In an apparent willful and with malice of forethought the schools have set out on a campaign to destroy our once great nation.. The big question is, why....
But, that's only my opinion..
RE: The workers were faster, worked harder and were culturally more accepting of direction.
They did not need to be emotionally stroked, and were motivated and thankful they had work.
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Well, it’s our fault that we don’t cultivate these traits. These are the kind of employees that ATTRACT employers everywhere.
Knowing this, How can we complain that nothing is being made in America anymore?
And if we can't root them out does that mean they are smarter than us?
Do you know we pay our workers in the South less than we pay workers in New Your? Slave labor at work or just a vast difference in the cost of living? Admittedly that is smoothing out because inflation is driving up food costs for everyone. Anyone remember what Steak was before Obama, or even Hamburger?
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