Only 50% of iPhone Casings Made in India Meet Apple's Quality Standards

[oneMadRssn]

To succeed in manufacturing you don't need a college education

I disagree. You don't need a college education to grind away on an assembly line, but you will not be what most of us consider successful and your job will be replaced by a robot soon enough.

The kind of manufacturing jobs that pay upper-middle class wages and are at a lesser risk of being obsoleted absolutely require a college education. As I said above, the kinds of automated manufacturing lines being built today require a pretty specialized kind of industrial engineer to run - you need to know electronics, you need to know how to program, and you need to know how to integrate systems. Battery, solar, and pharma industry manufacturing requires a pretty in-depth material science knowledge. Heck there are semiconductor fabs full of PhDs working on manufacturing.

 

[paulypants]

But I think there is a law that products for sale in India have to be made IN India. Or some percentage of them have to be...

Interesting. Did not know that.

 

[CarAnalogy]

My 13 mini will be my last iPhone, since they are too expensive from now on, apart from too big. Apple wants too much profit from me. I'm not buying it. Maybe if there comes along a mini-like iPhone again, I'll change my mind.

It goes around in cycles. There was no reason to release a 14 mini. You can just buy last year's model on refurb.

Or hey if you're a mom maybe Tim Cook will encourage your adult kid to buy you an iPhone.

 

[williedigital]

You rarely hear about how expensive college has become.

I'm sorry buddy, but this line almost invalidates your point, which is a good one.

The issue of college cost is real, but by far the bigger issue is policies that the standard college credential has lost value. At this point, we should essentially make masters degrees bachelor degrees, bachelor's degrees associate degrees, and high school grads, drop-outs.

It would be really nice to move away from these old "threshold" ideas of education and focus more on specific knowledge areas, and I think this will happen in the next few decades.

 

[williedigital]

Interesting. Did not know that.

Yep, all sorts of Rajist bureaucracy.

 

[Princejb134]

ill make sure to skip this years iphone if its made in india. Ill give them a few years to perfect it

 

[NT1440]

ill make sure to skip this years iphone if its made in india. Ill give them a few years to perfect it

That’s not how mass manufacturing works. If it got to packaging it’s already by definition passed all the QC.

The problem is the waste in the supply chain prior to acceptable units. They’re not shipping components that haven’t met QC standards.

 

[bluecoast]

We haven't withered. Manufacturing output as a share of GDP in the USA has stayed constant at ~12% since the 1950s. The change is the share of employment in manufacturing, which has declined from 30% to 10%. Thus, we are making more with less, which is exactly the goal. We want to be a country of intellectual workers, not manual laborers, and eventually we want to be a world of intellectual workers. The most valuable thing we have as a species is our intelligence and the larger the share of time we are using our minds vs our muscles, the faster we will eliminate worldwide poverty and ensure every human on earth lives "their best life".

I agree with your argument, 100%.

But in reality - and I'm in the UK - I see a load of people who previously would've been involved in manufacturing (tough and repetitive work sometimes, I'm not romanticising it) be warehouse operatives, delivery drivers, or Uber drivers. Or simply doing nothing.

That's the reality of globalisation - for cheaper consumer goods, more corporate profits, we've consigned a load of people to unfulfilling lives in low paid jobs, where they are doing the job of a robot - until robots can do them.

Admittedly though, a lot of manufacturing jobs will soon be automated.

However, instead of us in Western economies investing in, and building advanced onshore manufacturing facilities - and training people to work in them - we continue to support relatively low tech / people intensive manufacturing in countries, where the labour force is cheap and employee rights are lax.

 

[williedigital]

I agree with your argument, 100%.

But in reality - and I'm in the UK - I see a load of people who previously would've been involved in manufacturing (tough and repetitive work sometimes, I'm not romanticising it) be warehouse operatives, delivery drivers, or Uber drivers. Or simply doing nothing.

That's the reality of globalisation - for cheaper consumer goods, more corporate profits, we've consigned a load of people to unfulfilling lives in low paid jobs, where they are doing the job of a robot - until robots can do them.

Admittedly though, a lot of manufacturing jobs will soon be automated.

However, instead of us in Western economies investing in, and building advanced onshore manufacturing facilities - and training people to work in them - we continue to support relatively low tech / people intensive manufacturing in countries, where the labour force is cheap and employee rights are lax.

Yep, that's what it looks like on the ground (I'm in DC's in the UK frequently, btw), but while it's hard, you have to look at it in aggregate. The cushy Birmingham job of 1965 is replaced by 10 Chinese elevated from genuine poverty and the one UK dude driving around all day delivering junk and smoking pot and hoping to become an influencer at night.

Fewer are roaming around in muddy fields all day and coming home and beating their wife and committing incest with their kids, etc. All the truly ugly business of peasant life is going away. Yes, changing the tires on the lorrys headed to the ports isn't glamorous, but it's a step up, and the way forward as a species.

 

[jlc1978]

College has become loaded down with unnecessary courses which would never succeed on their own, so in effect they are subsidized from the traditional core courses, increasing the $ per credit.

What is an unnecessary course? Should a core curriculum include humanities, sports, social sciences and hard sciences?

The issue of college cost is real, but by far the bigger issue is policies that the standard college credential has lost value. At this point, we should essentially make masters degrees bachelor degrees, bachelor's degrees associate degrees, and high school grads, drop-outs.

That is an outgrowth of the increased percentage of students going to college, so it becomes a signal for employeers and replace a high school diploma as an entry point.

That’s not how mass manufacturing works. If it got to packaging it’s already by definition passed all the QC.

The problem is the waste in the supply chain prior to acceptable units. They’re not shipping components that haven’t met QC standards.

A lot depends on how the QC is done. Often every part is not expected if it is viewed as non-critical; and while they all may receive a basic inspection only a statistical sample may be pulled for a more detailed QC inspection. If they fail then the batch is further checked or discarded. Hard to say what the 50% means in Apple's case.

A 50% failure rate, in either case, is not sustainable. The question is:

Is it process, equipment, or worker capabilities?

I suspect the equipment is world class, it would make no sense to skimp on that and would look to process and worker actions to find and fix the cause.

I'm guessing it's a combination of the two - for example, workers pushing through product to meet quotas so subpar parts make out.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Actually, nails are a good example. Tariffs raised the price of the raw materials, so. US producer can’t compete with finished nails form mexico that are not subject to tariffs.



Of course, tariffs raise the price of goods for everyone, resulting in inflation and less spending power as a result. Meanwhile, a few enjoy jobs at the price of many. Of course, they also pay more for tariffed goods - wether they are imported, made of raw materials covered by tariffs, or US made goods that cost more since the only way they are competitive due to tariffs. Tariffs do not raise real wages, as inflation due to increased prices eat into the gains.

Other countries tariff US goods in response, lessening imports and eventually resulting in lost jobs as companies cut back. From the worker perspective, it is a net loss.

Henry Ford realized paying a living wage was a good idea, but he did not rely on tariffs to be competitive.

But Henry Ford did not have to compete against Chinese, Mexican, Canadian, and European imports.

Tariffs would work if this country had a vigorous nail manufacturing industry. Since very few nails seem to be made in country, a tariff on nails does penalize people from buying nails that are only available from sources subject to tariffs.

 

[ackmondual]

Interesting that you've decided to use the verb "to purport" when talking about your sources on Apple engineers training people at Indian factories... Especially because "purport" implies it appears as false. Which means these sources can't be trusted at all?

Also, the reason Chinese factories are able to produce Apple's hardware at "inexplicable speeds" is because : modern slavery. It's not because the Chinese workers in those factories are more skilled than the Indians or whatever, it's because the Chinese workers are under tremendous amounts of pressure to produce by an authoritarian regime that will literally kill them if they don't almost kill themselves working incredible long hours. It's not "inexplicable", it's how 80-90% of the modern supply chain works nowadays. But of course, we don't talk about that. Instead, we talk about how "inexplicable" it is... Come on

This. Management's solution to their workers committing suicide was to install anti-suicide nets. They were never going to address the horrid working conditions. Apple (and anybody else in their shows in the tech industry) wants to have their cake and eat it too... they want to say they're making everyone's lives better, but they don't want to properly address this b/c it'll dig into their profits. Instead, they just tell them "don't let us catching you do this sort of thing".

 

[Mojohanna32]

Interesting that you've decided to use the verb "to purport" when talking about your sources on Apple engineers training people at Indian factories... Especially because "purport" implies it appears as false. Which means these sources can't be trusted at all?

Also, the reason Chinese factories are able to produce Apple's hardware at "inexplicable speeds" is because : modern slavery. It's not because the Chinese workers in those factories are more skilled than the Indians or whatever, it's because the Chinese workers are under tremendous amounts of pressure to produce by an authoritarian regime that will literally kill them if they don't almost kill themselves working incredible long hours. It's not "inexplicable", it's how 80-90% of the modern supply chain works nowadays. But of course, we don't talk about that. Instead, we talk about how "inexplicable" it is... Come on

this is entirely false. I can't say it any more loudly, clearly. False. I've spent nearly 20 years working with chinese vendors and have spent nearly a year of my life in China, in factories and have seen these things for myself.

 

[Analog Kid]

Tariffs work, for the working class, for intelligent people who are, on the ground, and actually make things. Tariffs raise their real wages. Then they can buy real things, made well by other tariff protected workers, and $300 isn’t that much any more. Think about it for a while, from the perspective of the worker, not the corporate profit and competitiveness standpoint.

Tariffs raise prices, not wages. You might be trying to assume that one leads to another, but why would it?

Look at the mechanism you're proposing here: Assume a two country world. Country A imposes tariffs on country B (which country B will surely reciprocate). From the perspective of the worker, residents of country A must pay N money more for products they currently buy from country B. Their quality of life declines.

You say that eventually, country A will build out the capacity to produce those items in order to save themselves N money per unit. I agree that that is true. You say not to look at it from the perspective of corporate profit and I say you can't.

How is that capacity built? Those workers need factories to work in. Where do those factories come from? Factories cost K money to build! K >> N. Do you know any workers who have K money? No, that requires a corporation of elites to contribute their K money, and they're not going to do it for nothing. They're going to want to not only get their K money back, they're going to want to get a return on that investment.

Where does that return come from? It comes as added cost on every product built. How much added cost? N money added. People will pay N money more for a product from country A before they choose to buy from country B, so the products from country A will rise to that level.

Unless they can't. The only reason they wouldn't would be because people can't afford them at that new price-- but that's not a victory, that just means people's standard of living has declined because they can no longer afford the things they used to afford.

Ok, so maybe workers can demand n more money in exchange for leaving their current jobs in favor of these new jobs, but that won't make up for the fact that their standard of living has declined by N-n. If workers want more than n money, then the elite keep their K money and just don't provide the necessary capital to open the factory.

And when they do open that factory, those workers are being pulled from jobs that country A already agreed was a better allocation of resources. Sure there are occasional recessions, but those are the economic exceptions, not the rule. Most everyone is already doing something, and now they're being shifted to doing something else at higher cost. So now we have people doing things less efficiently than they were before just so they can do it in a country that didn't want to do it in the first place.


Tariffs don't lead to the redistribution that you think they do. They favor the moneyed interests. If you want to shift the balance of power as you claim, then you need to restore unions to give labor the same concentration of power that capital currently has, and drive a more progressive tax system to disincentivize allocating profits to capital rather than labor so wealth is less concentrated.

 

[NT1440]

What is an unnecessary course? Should a core curriculum include humanities, sports, social sciences and hard sciences?



That is an outgrowth of the increased percentage of students going to college, so it becomes a signal for employeers and replace a high school diploma as an entry point.



A lot depends on how the QC is done. Often every part is not expected if it is viewed as non-critical; and while they all may receive a basic inspection only a statistical sample may be pulled for a more detailed QC inspection. If they fail then the batch is further checked or discarded. Hard to say what the 50% means in Apple's case.

A 50% failure rate, in either case, is not sustainable. The question is:

Is it process, equipment, or worker capabilities?

I suspect the equipment is world class, it would make no sense to skimp on that and would look to process and worker actions to find and fix the cause.

I'm guessing it's a combination of the two - for example, workers pushing through product to meet quotas so subpar parts make out.

I’d agree, but this sounds an awful lot like trial production runs to get the actual manufacturing line physically set up. That takes months (my uncle does this for his company all over the world).

I think the “reporting” is a bit ahead of the gun here and omitting that this facility isn’t actually in the volume production stage yet. So the equipment is world class (Apple actually buys and owns the equipment at their assembly plants), but not fully configured and set up yet.

That’s my read on it anyway.

 

[Analog Kid]

I remember listening to the Howard Stern show a number of years ago when Robin Quivers said she went on vacation to India. She said on the way from the airport to her hotel that what she saw and what she smelled disgusted her so much that she had the driver turn around and go back to the airport and she left without ever staying.

Imagine her disgust at having to look at poverty.

That's the true horror, right? Traveling all that way and then smelling something bad. Poor Robin. Let's have a chardonnay and you can tell us about the flight, I hope you didn't have to sit in the middle seat all that way!

It's ok, though, she got to go on the radio and make people laugh... Hopefully that made up for some of her slight discomfort at seeing all those very uncomfortable people. And look-- people are still laughing at it all these years later in an anonymous comment thread on a totally unrelated topic! She truly gave a gift to the world.

 

[Analog Kid]

Henry Ford realized paying a living wage was a good idea

I wonder though, did he? Or did he have to pay that wage to keep his factory running and then market it as altruism?

I agree with your argument, 100%.

But in reality - and I'm in the UK - I see a load of people who previously would've been involved in manufacturing (tough and repetitive work sometimes, I'm not romanticising it) be warehouse operatives, delivery drivers, or Uber drivers. Or simply doing nothing.

That's the reality of globalisation - for cheaper consumer goods, more corporate profits, we've consigned a load of people to unfulfilling lives in low paid jobs, where they are doing the job of a robot - until robots can do them.

Admittedly though, a lot of manufacturing jobs will soon be automated.

However, instead of us in Western economies investing in, and building advanced onshore manufacturing facilities - and training people to work in them - we continue to support relatively low tech / people intensive manufacturing in countries, where the labour force is cheap and employee rights are lax.

I think that what needs to be understood is that it isn't the end state that's the problem, it's the change in state.

A country begins as an agricultural economy and then grows to the point that it would rather import some food and use that added efficiency to manufacture stuff. That puts farmers out of work who aren't trained to work in the factories.

A manufacturing economy grows to the point that it would rather import goods and use that added efficiency to design stuff and develop technologies. That puts laborers out of work who aren't trained in design and technology.

A technological economy grows to the point that it would rather import ideas and use that added efficiency to scroll social media pages, buy on credit, and watch porn.

Ok, so maybe the end state is a problem but, before that inevitable end, the problem is the disruption to individuals as the larger economy evolves. The answer isn't to stop evolving, the answer is to address the impact of change.

 

[Sir Desmond]

India built their own cryogenic rockets, and hydrogen bombs. I'll be surprised if this issue isn't resolved in a few weeks.

 

[StudioMacs]

Shantaram got cancelled?

Now I wish they had ended the show on a high note, rather than opting for a downer cliffhanger in anticipation of a second season that was never confirmed.

If I recall correctly, it even ended with "to be continued" text, so truly disappointing.

 

[NT1440]

India built their own cryogenic rockets, and hydrogen bombs. I'll be surprised if this issue isn't resolved in a few weeks.

Months, but yes. Most pharmaceuticals are manufactured in India. This isn’t a backwards underdeveloped nation that some would have you believe (through their own ignorance) when it comes to manufacturing.

The Chinese middle class is starting to assert its right to better wages and living conditions, which is why the financial sector has been projecting that Vietnam and India are slated to be the world’s sweatshop for the last decade or so. Capital sets up shop where the wages and worker protections are lowest. That’s not the case for China any more.

 

[DevNull0]

And then lower the price... in Tim Cook's world? Ha!

Obviously we have to raise the prices to cover management's bonuses for solving the problem so effectively. But if that bothers you, you can buy some new watch band colors until you feel better.

 

[NT1440]

Obviously we have to raise the prices to cover management's bonuses for solving the problem so effectively. But if that bothers you, you can buy some new watch band colors until you feel better.

We can also take solace in the fact that this is simply how ALL big business works.

Sometimes you’ll see upper management given bonuses bigger than the “cost savings” from the layoffs they engineered. They had a tough job figuring out how to fire people after all…

 

[bluecoast]

Yep, that's what it looks like on the ground (I'm in DC's in the UK frequently, btw), but while it's hard, you have to look at it in aggregate. The cushy Birmingham job of 1965 is replaced by 10 Chinese elevated from genuine poverty and the one UK dude driving around all day delivering junk and smoking pot and hoping to become an influencer at night.

Fewer are roaming around in muddy fields all day and coming home and beating their wife and committing incest with their kids, etc. All the truly ugly business of peasant life is going away. Yes, changing the tires on the lorrys headed to the ports isn't glamorous, but it's a step up, and the way forward as a species.

Like I said, I do get your argument... Capitalism can lift people out of poverty, when it works.

But what do you reckon about the points that I'm going to make below about political / military aspects?

Globalisation was meant to be a great no brainer for us in the West:

We could elevate countries in poverty by getting them to make our stuff there
No need to pay direct aid to developing world countries - aid would be via capitalism, the single best way that anyone had ever found to create wealth and rise people and nations up.

More trade means less - or no - war
Countries who are providing wealth to their people would grow the pie in their countries through better jobs and trade - not by war.

And war is expensive and disruptive, so it just wouldn't be rational to go to war (Russia didn't buy this argument though).

And of course, it's great for businesses in the 1st World
We've all discussed this on this thread:

Companies could close their manufacturing bases in their home markets and shop around 3rd party suppliers (or relocate them to cheaper countries). Why? Reduced labour cost. No likelihood of those pesky workers joining unions etc. etc.

EDIT: Consumers got more for less
And of course, consumers got cheaper goods. They get to feel richer. They buy more stuff. The economy booms. The state gets more sales taxes etc. etc. [end edit]

So far so good.

However, with China, things aren't exactly going to plan.

This story hasn't played out yet, but I'm going to bet that historians will look back on making China as the manufacturing poster child of globalisation as a huge mistake on behalf of policy makers in the 1st world.

Instead of a peaceful country that is gradually drawn into western lead trade, capitalism and democracy, we have a country that has used its position as the workshop of the world - fuelled by an injection of western capital - to greatly expand its own ambitions and agenda and to reclaim its place as the world's leading power.

And lots of western companies - including Apple - are now extremely dependent on China.

This, I suspect is going to soon seem to be as sensible as outsourcing a big chunk of your manufacturing base to behind the Iron Curtain in the 1970s.

We'll see. This has yet to play out. But I'm not hopeful that it's going to end well.

 

[jlc1978]

But Henry Ford did not have to compete against Chinese, Mexican, Canadian, and European imports.

True, but US auto and motorcycle manufacturers have relied on tariffs for protection and to raise prices; one famous one is the chicken tax.

Tariffs would work if this country had a vigorous nail manufacturing industry. Since very few nails seem to be made in country, a tariff on nails does penalize people from buying nails that are only available from sources subject to tariffs.

Define work. Tariffs would raise the cost of housing and the projects using nails, raising the costs to consumers. The tariff on steel basically drove a US nail manufacturer out of business since imports were now cheaper; while also raising the costs of products that use steel. Ultimately, consumers pay more and buy less; hurting some companies as sales drop. If imposed products are cheaper then consumers will shift to those; in the end while a few businesses may benefit the consumer and others lose. In the end, tariffs are a net loss to an economy; even before the impact of retaliatory tariffs.

As a case in point, look at Harley. When the EU imposed retaliatory tariffs, it moved production out of the US to avoid them and paid higher costs for steel as prices rose, and net income dropped.

I wonder though, did he? Or did he have to pay that wage to keep his factory running and then market it as altruism?

Not sure, the popular story is by doing so his employees could afford cars, starting the mechanization of the us population.

I’d agree, but this sounds an awful lot like trial production runs to get the actual manufacturing line physically set up. That takes months (my uncle does this for his company all over the world).

I think the “reporting” is a bit ahead of the gun here and omitting that this facility isn’t actually in the volume production stage yet. So the equipment is world class (Apple actually buys and owns the equipment at their assembly plants), but not fully configured and set up yet.

That’s my read on it anyway.

That may very well be the case. It takes a while to get things running smoothly, identify and fix problems, etc. before going online for real.

 

[bluecoast]

I agree with your analysis, with just a little pushback on the characterization of China not being a peaceful nation in the world stage. In my relatively short time on the is earth the scorecard of warmongering is laughably one sided, and China isn’t the big gorilla in that conversation.

Regarding the “economic trap” we’ve been hearing about from analysts regarding loans for the Belt and Road initiative, again I’d check the receipts and compare the strings attached to IMF loans vs the actual loan forgiveness China has been doing (not reported in Western media because it goes against this narrative) for African nations.

People don’t want to hear this, but the ledger doesn’t lie in the 21st century. One side has brought death, destruction, and financial traps to destroy public sectors around the world providing the necessities of life, and the other side is China…

Oh totally agree.

I think that it would be wrong to characterise the West as 'good' and China as 'bad'.

I'm sitting here in the UK. In the 19th Century, we flooded China with opium, causing a huge addiction epidemic.

This was after we forced them - literally forced them - to trade with us.

Plus the other not so great things that we did across the world at that time in pursuit of our empire.

And of course, following from your comments, globalisation was ultimately a scheme to ensure that the US kept its place as the world's economic and financial super power whilst its allies benefited also.

I guess this sort of thing is reflected in Apple too - which is why we are all here, of course.

We can admire lots of good things about Apple - its design, its UX, its innovation, its commitment to privacy.

However, we can also not admire many of the business practices it has - its insistence on still creaming off sales on the App Store and of course and of course, its practices with its manufacturing partners.