Some background (not comment – background): In the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs it is revealed that at a dinner with President Obama Jobs laid out a number of reasons he felt that manufacturing jobs were leaving the U.S.
In a NY Times article today they have a deeper (7 page) account of, what I believe is, that dinner with an exploration of Jobs / Apple’s reasoning for shifting manufacturing overseas.
This section sets the tone of the article, but I will let you read the rest and decide on the accuracy of the arguments:
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. 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.”
(I am doing this as a presented without comment because I know that we have people who contribute here who work on both sides of the design / manufacturing process and I want to see if there are contrasting views.)
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