Foxconn

A Foxconn Breakdown: It's Strengths, Strangeness, and Scrutiny

• By David Murphy
• January 22, 2012 07:07pm EST
• 3 Comments

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You can't often think of the word "Apple" without thinking of the word "Foxconn" as well. The two are entangled in both business and culture – the former, a result of Foxconn's contract to assemble Apple's iPads and iPhones, and the latter, a result of the continued questions surrounding conditions for the company's million-plus factory workers.
Foxconn tends to only pop up in the news when one of two things happens: Its workers threaten (or commit) suicide or the company decides to expand its manufacturing capabilities to process even more of Apple's current or future devices. But the company has popped up in the press a bit more than usual lately for a number of reasons beyond the "standard" stories listed above. And each of Foxconn's appearances sheds a different light on the company's strengths, strangeness, and scrutiny.
How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
The New York Times recently published a detailed look at the various reasons why technological powerhouses like Apple flock to overseas labor. Apple's reasons for doing so aren't what you might think at first: Foxconn employees aren't just cheaper labor. Rather, Apple's initial decision to move manufacturing to Asia came as a result of foreign companies' tremendous ability to scale and their dominance of the supply chain.
"[Foxconn] could hire 3,000 people overnight," said Jennifer Rigoni, Apple's former worldwide supply demand manager, in an interview with the Times. "What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?"
According to the article, Apple initially estimated that it would take up to nine months in the U.S. for the company to find 8,700 industrial engineers to supervise the more than 200,000 assembly-line workers involved in manufacturing iPhones. Factories in China generated this workforce in 15 days.
"The entire supply chain is in China now," said an undisclosed former Apple executive in an interview with the Times. "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." end quote.

The quotes sort of remind of  Henry Ford's incredibly efficient first  factory assembly line building Model T's in the early 20th Century. But because of workers rights and unions in the U.S. things aren't like that anymore here. But let me rephrase and repeat some of it, "Find 3000 people to work for you overnight that will live in dorms." "Find 8,700 industrial engineers to supervise 200,000 assembly line worker in 15 days." "You need a million screws. The factory is a block away and you want it a little different. That will take three hours."

So, in the end it isn't just wages that moved Apple's assembly lines to China. It was all these things that the U.S. simply could not supply because we now treat our employees as human beings rather than animals.