Does Apple underestimate American manufacturing?

[Jarhead]

Not everyone is has unlimited R&D funds.

Some companies have budgets and can't afford the time and/or expense it takes so they have no other choice than to look elsewhere. And even if we have the money... we don't have the time. Maybe you missed the part where I said how long it has taken to find people and the project should have been finished by now. Additionally, being a smaller company, how do you compete with a bigger one that will spend more than the going rate just because they can?

You make it sound like it's easy to find good programmers... how many have you interviewed, hired and kept long-term?

Oh of course they do . They're called venture funding and business loans. they do have to repaid, true, but the money is out there. This is capitalism: if your idea is great and becomes profitable, awesome! If not, oh well but you can always try again as many times as you like. Point is, there is money out there that's nearly unlimited, but the people applying for a loan have to make out their ideas as being worth the effort. If a company has funding problems because of this, it's time to go back to the drawing board and think about why the idea isn't selling.

Smaller companies aren't the ones that are usually found outsourcing; instead, it's the bigger ones (which *could* afford paying a higher salary) that outsource the most. Smaller companies can compete on other bases: demand exceeds supply from bigger companies, offer a better package (maybe it's a lower salary, but give stock options or longer vacations; whatever an employee values), or something else that's interesting.

I agree with DexterMorgan in that people good at doing X isn't impossible. If a company is unwilling to use their own HR department to find employees, they could always use a job bank or hiring agency. Surely Apple didn't hire their factory workers themselves, Foxconn did that.

[Pseudorandom]

Flexibility is a human issue; specifically, it's the ability for workers to adapt and change pace in response to a market in flux, correct? Okay then, I'm sure that so long as everyone's speaking the same language (Chinese or English) and can understand their orders, all is well. I don't see any difference in the above nations (or any) unless there's something I'm missing. Tell the workers to switch out machinery A with C, move 50 workers from Floor 12 to 27, etc. So long as they're qualified to perform the job they were hired for (including good health), anybody is flexible enough for factory work.

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 challenge you to find a large group of American factory workers willing to do something like that. They don't even have to be working in a factory that would ever actually make them do it, they just have to be willing.

Scalability is something that no industrialized nation should have issue with. The only factors concerning this would be capital to invest in construction, and education to train the builders/workers/engineers. Both America and India output the same amount of actual engineers (again, China is a mystery), and there are more than enough blue-collar workers in the three nations to put brick and mortar together and follow the engineers' directions.

It's interesting to know that engineer output is similar, but if they exist in sufficient numbers, they aren't made available enough. It's not a few weeks compared to just 15 days for Apple to find mid level engineers, it would have taken 9 months in the US. Maybe even though China doesn't have many times more engineers than the US, they make sure that they have a list of thousands of engineers ready for hire that they shove in company's faces. If that is the case, the US government really has to step in more to make sure that they can get those engineers that are supposedly available to companies that need them in a time frame competitive to China's.

What is there about a supply chain that's mysterious? You move product from point A to B to C (however many points). Both America and China have quick, established supply chains to haul goods through, be it truck, boat, plane, etc. Actually, China would be at a supply chain disadvantage in terms of speed, simply due to the distances involved with moving product to America and elsewhere around the globe. Not to mention the dirt highways, if KingDong is to be believed (with his 20 years experience in China). If America's supply chain is so bad, explain to me how I can order a large, heavy item from Amazon and have it shipped to me from California to South Carolina within two days (Prime membership). If Company X outsources, they'll have to wait to ship it across the Pacific for a week or two (or however fast cargo ships travel). Then when the shipment finally arrives in California, there's the additional problem of getting said large item from California to South Carolina, ~3000 miles away (to recap, that's the only distance a California-based plant will have to deal with). Time is money, and money is God.

The factory for glass is next to the factory for batteries is right next to the factory for microchips is right next to the factory for smartphones. Chinese manufacturing plants aren't spread out much. Components don't need to be moved across the nation from where they are made to where they are needed for the end product, they can just be moved across the street. Not only is there a lot of money saved there, it also adds to flexibility since it makes the time to obtain new components (such as the iPhone glass) less to facilitate last minute changes better.

The last part about money is god is so sadly true. I think the US manufacturing industry would have stood a chance if people didn't start outsourcing, but the time for an easy reverse has long passed. Making a U turn will be a long painful process, and even the government helped, and even if Apple was enthusiastic about bringing manufacturing back, their component suppliers would also need to be, and a lot of those component suppliers aren't even based in the US and would rather bring manufacturing back to Korea, or Japan, or wherever they are from.

[Jarhead]

I challenge you to find a large group of American factory workers willing to do something like that. They don't even have to be working in a factory that would ever actually make them do it, they just have to be willing.

If the ability to have a large workforce live right next to the factory is the primary concern (actually a legitimate bonus), we could round up even a small percentage of the homeless in a large city (like NYC, for example) and offer them:

* a home
* a job
* food/drink
* something that isn't $0/hour

I don't care who would try to say otherwise, but if I was broke and homeless and someone walked up to me an offered me the above four benefits, the HR person wouldn't even finish their sentence before I dressed up in overalls, facemask, and the rest of the company uniform.

It's stupid easy to find unfortunate people here; have an Apple HR group drive to the nearest Manna House for example, if they're rather have a centralized location for a pool of homeless.

It's interesting to know that engineer output is similar, but if they exist in sufficient numbers, they aren't made available enough. It's not a few weeks compared to just 15 days for Apple to find mid level engineers, it would have taken 9 months in the US. Maybe even though China doesn't have many times more engineers than the US, they make sure that they have a list of thousands of engineers ready for hire that they shove in company's faces. If that is the case, the US government really has to step in more to make sure that they can get those engineers that are supposedly available to companies that need them in a time frame competitive to China's.

Agreed that American engineers aren't advertised as much as they should be. I believe that we are producing at least somewhere around 200,000+ engineers a year; even the small university I'm attending puts out at least ~2,000 engineers a year.

At the risk of turning this thread into a "they took my job!" rant (as Melody pointed out), it seems that companies would rather hire L-1's and H-1B's every three or so years than to hire American engineers for the long-run, since it's more expensive to do so. That is if the company doesn't outright outsource knowledge jobs as well.

The factory for glass is next to the factory for batteries is right next to the factory for microchips is right next to the factory for smartphones. Chinese manufacturing plants aren't spread out much. Components don't need to be moved across the nation from where they are made to where they are needed for the end product, they can just be moved across the street. Not only is there a lot of money saved there, it also adds to flexibility since it makes the time to obtain new components (such as the iPhone glass) less to facilitate last minute changes better.

So when we rebuild our factories, let's model ourselves after the Chinese .

The last part about money is god is so sadly true. I think the US manufacturing industry would have stood a chance if people didn't start outsourcing, but the time for an easy reverse has long passed. Making a U turn will be a long painful process, and even the government helped, and even if Apple was enthusiastic about bringing manufacturing back, their component suppliers would also need to be, and a lot of those component suppliers aren't even based in the US and would rather bring manufacturing back to Korea, or Japan, or wherever they are from.

I don't think anyone would claim that it would be easy, but I see it as the right thing to do to ensure our nation's long-term health. When it's gotten to the point where the US military is at the mercy of outsourced parts, you know that the world has America by the balls. Not to mention that if outsourcing is taken to the extreme, nobody at home could ever afford the products they want/need, hence the self-destruction of one or more economies.

[Kinghong1970]

...I don't mean to sound rude to anyone or make assumptions but at the end of the day I feel this is an elaborate argument of "foreigners are stealing our jobs"

i used to manufacture my garments from Korea... did it for a couple of years and then i moved over to china 100% in a heartbeat...

being Ko-Am, yea, i heard the comments...

why do i support china not korea...
(they were some ignorant s...)

but despite their ignorance, i basically laid one challenge to them...

do your [beep] right,
keep your word,
don't knock off my style and sell to my competitor,
and give me what i paid for...and make the better product...
then i'll bring all my order back...

i have yet to hear from them...

sorry, usa did indeed passed the point of no return.
perhaps "we" have outgrown the blue collar jobs... and everyone wants white collar salary and union breaks every time someone turns the screwdriver...

but the sad thing is... look at the unemployment numbers...

we have indeed become complacent...

[MidnightSun]

I don't think anyone would claim that it would be easy, but I see it as the right thing to do to ensure our nation's long-term health. When it's gotten to the point where the US military is at the mercy of outsourced parts, you know that the world has America by the balls. Not to mention that if outsourcing is taken to the extreme, nobody at home could ever afford the products they want/need, hence the self-destruction of one or more economies.

The global economy is the future. Protectionists always cry out about the doomsday where the majority of Americans are out of jobs, prices are still too high to afford, the living standard has plummeted, etc, etc.

But what they often don't realize is that everyone's interconnected around the world: yes, "the world has America by the balls." But other countries are very dependent on the US as well. Without the US market, China and South Korea would be in very, very big trouble.

As history has proven many times in the past (look at a plot of tariff levels since the United States' inception), protectionism is not the way to go. For America--and other countries--economic success will come with opening the doors to globalization.

And with that, there will be consequences such as outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. But as I've mentioned several times in this thread, we reap many, many other benefits as well, while countries like China do as well.

[BigNerd]

Oh of course they do . They're called venture funding and business loans. they do have to repaid, true, but the money is out there. This is capitalism: if your idea is great and becomes profitable, awesome! If not, oh well but you can always try again as many times as you like.

Ok... I've tried to be reasonable but did you just read what you posted?

If you fail, there is no reset button or do over like in a video game... you still owe that money to someone and you won't be able "try again" until you repay that loan (which you can't because you failed) and no one will loan you money if you're in default.

Point is, there is money out there that's nearly unlimited,

Again... there is no special cheat code to give you unlimited credits. This is very naive of you and I understand because you're just a student that your perspective may be a bit green.

Smaller companies aren't the ones that are usually found outsourcing; instead, it's the bigger ones (which *could* afford paying a higher salary) that outsource the most.

Think about this. Why would a bigger company outsource? Must be more than just salary if they can afford it... this is the concept you are not getting.

Smaller companies can compete on other bases: demand exceeds supply from bigger companies, offer a better package (maybe it's a lower salary, but give stock options or longer vacations; whatever an employee values), or something else that's interesting.

Yes... wave that magic wand and qualified people will line up to work for you.

I agree with DexterMorgan in that people good at doing X isn't impossible. If a company is unwilling to use their own HR department to find employees, they could always use a job bank or hiring agency.

And do you understand there is cost for that? Not just the time but any type of hiring agency you use will charge you a percentage fee on TOP of what you pay for the salary and that doesn't include the cost of benefits, taxes and insurance you have to pay which can be higher depending on which state you do business in.

Surely Apple didn't hire their factory workers themselves, Foxconn did that.

Now you're getting it... it cost way less for Apple to have Foxconn do it then it would for them to do it themselves or hire an agency to do it... like magnitudes.

For anyone who thinks it's easy to hire qualified individuals in the tech field... you're not dealing with reality. Someone asked me why do other companies hire employees away from competitors instead of hiring from the large percentage of unemployed we hear about in the US. There are few reasons:

1. That person is unemployed for a reason... most good workers usually stayed employed.

2. As a corollary to #1, if the good people are employed, that's where you want to hire from.

3. Many people who are employed, prefer to stay where they are even if they could earn more because of myriad of reasons: seniority, benefits, loyalty, comfortable with position... which makes it harder to find qualified people who will leave that for you... much moreso if you can't offer as much as they do even if your product is "the awesome".

As much as you think that you can find someone unemployed or straight out of high school in the US to work like people overseas (whose country may not have the welfare we have), it's just not that cut and dry.

[HTWingNut]

There are few reasons:

1. That person is unemployed for a reason... most good workers usually stayed employed.

2. As a corollary to #1, if the good people are employed, that's where you want to hire from.

3. Many people who are employed, prefer to stay where they are even if they could earn more because of myriad of reasons: seniority, benefits, loyalty, comfortable with position... which makes it harder to find qualified people who will leave that for you... much moreso if you can't offer as much as they do even if your product is "the awesome".

As much as you think that you can find someone unemployed or straight out of high school in the US to work like people overseas (whose country may not have the welfare we have), it's just not that cut and dry.

LOL! That is the most naive and biggest load of BS I have ever read (at least #1 and #2). Where the hell did you come up with that bunk. So the 20% unemployed are all "undesirables" HELLO!? Our economy has been in a very depressed state for a good 5-6 years (talking heads call it a recession, I call it a depression). I've worked with some pretty substandard employees that have kept their jobs . Just because they're working or not working doesn't mean a damn thing. I know many very qualified individuals that can't hold a job any more, and they are outstanding workers.

So many jobs lost because people were part of a crowd in the wrong place at the wrong time. When we look back in history this will be seen as worse than the great depression. No we don't have 50% unemployment, but the fact that manufacturing jobs are leaving the US in droves, the reduction of middle class, housing values with 25% under water, inflation still rising while the average salary remains stagnant or declining...

[Jarhead]

BigNerd:

So you'd imply that HTWingNut (who just recently got a job) isn't a very good worker? What about people who get fired for "office politics"? For example, my mom was fired a few months ago since she wouldn't do things for the nursing home that would get her in hot water with DHEC (the nursing home was full of crap employees who still have their jobs). She refused to break the law, and thus was fired for a BS reason, two days before she was due to go back to work after an injury *caused* by a coworker (good thing she forced workers comp out of them).

-----

The problem I see with outsourcing is that eventually all the 1st and 2nd teir jobs will be gone (as mentioned by someone else in a previous comment), leaving only retail/services and probably knowledge jobs (but we could just telecommute engineers, right?). With that, you pretty much kill the middle class since everyone would either be working lower jobs that just can't be outsourced (someone has to flip those burgers...) or working for years on a BS or MS to hold a starting position at a higher-education job, and not everyone can get a college degree. Let's face it, if everyone went out and got a BS or higher (as some people advocate), the value of said degree will drop drastically. Effectively, most people will be capped at a 2-year AA or AS degree fro a community college which, depending on the major, won't pay well enough to live a cushy life of the middle class.

[BigNerd]

@HTWN & pjh:

Please re-read my post... I didn't say those were the main reasons why people are unemployed... I said those were a "few" reasons why people hire from other companies rather than hiring from the pool of unemployed. Obviously not "all" unemployed are "undesirable" and not "all" employed are the most qualified but it is not "bunk" to think that if someone is good at what they do... they won't be unemployed for long. They'll adjust, adapt or figure out a new way to apply their skill such that they will be able to get another job.

And yes, this does not account for economic or even sociological reasons, some people won't work because the job doesn't pay enough or companies are covertly using age/race discrimination but for the most part, if someone is willing and qualified, they can find work. And remember... I'm referring to certain job sectors such as software development... lost jobs due to loss of industry (like a closed manufacturing plant) is not factored into what I'm saying because I'm talking about an industry that is hiring.

If HTWingNut just got a job... what does that mean? Did pjh's mom get a new job? Again, it's my opinion (and that of many people in a hiring position) that good people can find a job and stay employed as long as they have skill sets that are in demand. That's not a general statement on why unemployment is where it is, but it's one of the many reasons why you'll see some companies hire people who are already employed rather than hire from the unemployed (and now we are really off topic).