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A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won't Be 'Assembled in U.S.A.'
In China, you will also find one of Apple's most important markets, and over the last month the risks that come with that dependence have become apparent. On Jan. 2, Apple said it would miss earnings expectations for the first time in 16 years, mostly because of slowing iPhone sales in China. On Tuesday, the company is expected to reveal more details about its financial results for the most recent quarter and its forecast for the coming year.
In 2012, Apple's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: "Assembled in USA."
But when Apple began making the $3,000 computer in Austin, Tex., it struggled to find enough screws, according to three people who worked on the project and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.
In China, Apple relied on factories that can produce vast quantities of custom screws on short notice. In Texas, where they say everything is bigger, it turned out the screw suppliers were not.
Tests of new versions of the computer were hamstrung because a 20-employee machine shop that Apple's manufacturing contractor was relying on could produce at most 1,000 screws a day.
The company could face more financial pressure if the Trump administration places tariffs on phones made in China — something the president has threatened to do.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 30 2019, @11:03AM
Nb: while I realise the discussion is about china vs us, I see this as a major risk for the general stability of modern world. The amount of infrastructure required to support the current manufacturing base is huge and complex, and problems with supply chain are highly correlated. So, for example, if you remove D from the supply chain, you knock over B AND C; so when dealing with risk assessment it is not enough to treat B and C as independent entities, which makes risk assessment fiercely difficult. It is not clear to me that it is a stable system (in the physics sense).
It is these sorts of correlations which broke the banks models, leading to the 2008 financial crisis