Foxconn's Plans to Restart Apple Device Production on Monday Were Called Off By Chinese Health Authorities [Updated]

[djgamble]

Apple needs to move its production facilities back to the USA.

Yeah or like... some other random developing country that has cheap labour + international postage without all the hassle of it being China.

IMO companies should start moving everything to places like India, Vietnam, Indonesia...etc.

 

[konqerror]

This picture reminds me so much of a car factory I visited in Germany. They explained how the stop where they put the engine in the car used to be a 12-man job in 3 work shifts a day... so 36 people... now they have 4 robots do that, they work 24 hrs, 7 days a week and 365 days... without making mistakes.

Nope. You've never owned a VW. Robots are highly limited in range of motion, so things are made of many snap-together plastic pieces which invariably break. For example, take the door handle. Instead of a cable, which is difficult to install, they use a Rube Goldberg contraption of plastic levers, which have slop, and make the car feel cheap.

Also, robots cannot observe defects. If a part doesn't fit smoothly, a human will put it aside. Robots, to eliminate backlash, use huge forces, that is, they jam parts together. They cannot notice defects like a human can.

Compare the Europeans, world's least reliable cars, with the Japanese, the world's most reliable. The Japanese use far less automation in their lines.

 

[tongxinshe]

yes and I bet you’d be willing to pay $3k for an iPhone?🤔 That’s assuming they could even find the type of skilled labor willing to do assembly line work(and keep doing it after Apple tried training the workforce).

I will never suggest this type of word to my children, especially that they are so seasonal.

 

[alien3dx]

Absolutely, because everyone knows that Tesla cars are outrageously overpriced, right?
Dell Computers can't begin to compete, despite what Round Rock, TX throws out - or are you mistaken?
Jobs are coming back to the US, for a variety of reasons. As the global economy equalizes, profits from foreign countries decrease. Having worked with India, with highly skilled mass manufacturing in Mumbai, if we had a production issue, we lost 8 hours of production in India, then due to time differences and root cause analysis, solutions analysis, verification/validation and implementation, plus time differences - we often lost at LEAST a full two days production. If the same thing had happened in the US, the labor cost would be measured in hours, not days.
Add in shipping, taxes, rising costs due to changing world economies, robotics and the technology required to sustain these robotics - things are changing.

come to malaysia, car tax 100%.. The problem in United state i see the currency over strong and to compete other market price quite problem such as medication,salary and other.

 

[tongxinshe]

HP, Dell, Tesla and a lot of other USA manufacturer's seem to be doing pretty well.

Not near to the level Apple needs, quantity-wise and seasonal-fluctuation-wise.

 

[konqerror]

Yeah or like... some other random developing country that has cheap labour + international postage without all the hassle of it being China.

I love how everybody is obsessed with China when there's Mexico. They make roughly 1/6 that of the US, you ship it over by truck and they have free trade agreements (NAFTA, now USMCA). That's where Dell, HP, Lenovo go.

 

[danny842003]

Not diversifying manufacturing makes Tim Cook incompetent compared to Elon Musk's manufacturing per continent model.

Yes never having a profitable year must make Tim Cook very envious.

 

[enabler]

If the iPhone were to be made in the US it would be designed differently so as to not need human labor. It would likely turn out to be heavier and thicker but the parts would be designed to "self align" and "click" in place and not depend on any tiny screws. The cost could be about the same.

When you design a part of any kind you think about how it will be made. You design very differently if that art is made by hand or if it is CNC's metal or it it is going to be 3D printed. You don't design things in a vacuum

But moving production to the US would not create any jobs. These robot factories tend to not have many humans inside. Look at the photo below of a robot factory and you can count the number of humans on your thumbs (don't need to use fingers) This is the way to move production to US. (Funy is that this car factory is in China)

View attachment 893180

Completely agree with your business judgement - use one additional finger too, though, actually there are two employees bored in the ailes...

 

[kis]

Apple needs to move its production facilities back to the USA.

or to Europe - cheaper here. Or to pretty much any country in the world except for China.
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Yes never having a profitable year must make Tim Cook very envious.

Musk had an excellent year. SpaceX is hugely profitable and has been for years. At the speed they're innovating, this is a gold mine.

Tesla is very close to getting there - they've had their best year yet and with production finally working now, stock prices are soaring.

 

[Anand Narayanaswamy]

Apple should establish a robust and large manufacturing plant in India under Make in India initiative.

 

[chris1958]

What is NOT being talked about, is the nature of the virus. The Corona virus is NOT new, this strain (or mutation) is new; but we have known about the original Corona virus since the 1960's. Up until recently, we knew of 5 different strains, common around the world. Animals and humans can share this virus. This one, is particularily nasty. Chinese reports have leaked out showing exponentially worse scenarios than previously shown.

But, here is the nasty part. It's contageious from 1-11 days BEFORE the patient is symptomatic. By the time the patient shows signs of being sick, he has been spreading the virus for over a week, and those people are spreading it. A person sneezes or coughs on an aircraft, and the virus is airborne. Say it doesn't land in your eye, or get sucked into your lungs - but decides to hang out in the aircraft's ventilation system for a few hours, days, weeks or years. See the problem?
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Seems like a 50+ year old Quality World view, and most of the companies that embraced that view, are no longer in business (Admiral, Quasar, Pontiac, etc). Today, Six Sigma Quality standards are employed at practically every manufacturing center, without regard to size. IPC Soldering standards are mandatory at every place that does business in electronics - if they even hope to ship for commercial, international or federal contracts.

I doubt you an find a semiconductor manufacturer in the USA that does not do Burn-In, HAST at a minimum on preproduction lots, and has a published Qualification standard that meets or exceeds Six Sigma lot sampling requirements.

HP, Dell, Tesla and a lot of other USA manufacturer's seem to be doing pretty well.

Former USA manufacturers:
Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999), which have been closed in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received US$280 million in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010, and Dell's contract with the state requires them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions.[51][52] Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami, Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers (its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas.
(From Wikipedia)

Tesla has build a factory in Shanghai and plans to build another near Berlin. And Tesla is a luxury brand for the people, for whom money doesn't matter.

 

[RogerWilco]

Musk had an excellent year. SpaceX is hugely profitable and has been for years. At the speed they're innovating, this is a gold mine.

Tesla is very close to getting there - they've had their best year yet and with production finally working now, stock prices are soaring.

How do you know that SpaceX is profitable? They are a privately held company with considerable debt. People are comparing TSLA to AAPL and they must be smoking strong stuff. Unlike Tesla, Apple makes a profit every day on every item it sells.

 

[CoZmicShReddeR]

If the iPhone were to be made in the US it would be designed differently so as to not need human labor. It would likely turn out to be heavier and thicker but the parts would be designed to "self align" and "click" in place and not depend on any tiny screws. The cost could be about the same.

When you design a part of any kind you think about how it will be made. You design very differently if that art is made by hand or if it is CNC's metal or it it is going to be 3D printed. You don't design things in a vacuum

But moving production to the US would not create any jobs. These robot factories tend to not have many humans inside. Look at the photo below of a robot factory and you can count the number of humans on your thumbs (don't need to use fingers) This is the way to move production to US. (Funy is that this car factory is in China)

View attachment 893180

That's how a standard bodyshop at any us or foreign company shop looks these days... Nothing but robots everywhere...

 

[Bandaman]

The flu virus has killed over 6 times more people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?

 

[DryRot]

I bet factories nationwide will be delayed opening at least another week, if not until March.

Cant see that happening. The Chinese govt is lying and the situation is much, much worse than you think. As an example, they say that the death rate is 2% whereas it is probably 15-17%.

Hopefully we are reaching peak infections this week, with a steep drop-off coming because of precautions.

What makes you think that? What precautions? Welding residents into their flats?

The situation is chaotic over there.

 

[gnasher729]

The flu virus has killed over 6 times more people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?

Because coronavirus is spreading. Next weeks question "The flu virus has killed over 3 times more people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?" In two weeks: "The flu virus has killed almost twice as many people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?" In three weeks: "The flu virus has killed almost as many people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?".

 

[scrapesleon]

That’s if people show up for work though

 

[gnasher729]

Cant see that happening. The Chinese govt is lying and the situation is much, much worse than you think. As an example, they say that the death rate is 2% whereas it is probably 15-17%.

It's not necessarily lying, it's just maths.

The virus is spreading, doubling every week. The people who are dying today were infected two weeks ago. So it may be 600 dead out of 5000 infected two weeks ago, not 600 dead out of the 30,000 infected today. Hopefully the infection rate will slow down. When that happens te death rate will still go up for two weeks.

 

[PC_tech]

That's how a standard bodyshop at any us or foreign company shop looks these days... Nothing but robots everywhere...

Um... no.

 

[Larry Doyle]

This story needs to be updated.

China's Shenzhen denies blocking Apple supplier Foxconn from resuming production

Local Chinese authorities have not blocked Apple <AAPL.O> supplier Foxconn <2317.TW> from resuming production amid a coronavirus outbreak, they said in a statement on Sunday, denying an earlier report in the Nikkei Business Daily.

www.reuters.com

 

[Bandaman]

Because coronavirus is spreading. Next weeks question "The flu virus has killed over 3 times more people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?" In two weeks: "The flu virus has killed almost twice as many people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?" In three weeks: "The flu virus has killed almost as many people this 2020 season than the coronavirus. Why aren’t we covering that?".

No, the flu has been on a pretty consistent increase ... just as it always has been since the dawn of the flu. By the way ... it's nearly doubled since a checked a week ago. It's now at 14 times the deaths of the coronavirus. Statistically speaking ... the flu virus is much worse ... especially for the young and the old.

 

[Swampbaby985]

This is why Apple needs to move production of their products to the United States. If it's lacknof a skilled workforce that is hindering it then surely Apple has the financial means to help educating said workforce.

 

[BladeRunner95]

No, the flu has been on a pretty consistent increase ... just as it always has been since the dawn of the flu. By the way ... it's nearly doubled since a checked a week ago. It's now at 14 times the deaths of the coronavirus. Statistically speaking ... the flu virus is much worse ... especially for the young and the old.

You seriously think this is comparable to flu?!

The flu has a death rate of 0.1%. It has an R-0 of a little over 1 (so each person infects a bit over 1 person on average). The 'complication rate' is low. It can only be spread once you're showing symptoms of infection, and the virus can survive on a hard surface for only hours. There are flu vaccines available.

The 2019 nCOV virus death rate is unknown, but currently there are 813 deaths and 2132 recoveries, so 27% of the cases which have reached conclusion have been deaths (this is likely to fall, but SARS was over 30%). The R-0 is believed to be over 3, & possibly over 4, so it's extremely contagious. The complication rate is over 20%. It can be spread before symptoms show, and the incubation period is up to 2 weeks. It can survive on hard surfaces for up to 9 days. There are currently no vaccines.

So comparing nCOV to the flu is like comparing an iPhone 11 Pro to a 90's Motorola Startac!

The fact the virus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 9 days is reason enough to not re-open the Foxconn factory until the pandemic has been resolved IMO.

 

[Bandaman]

You seriously think this is comparable to flu?!

The flu has a death rate of 0.1%. It has an R-0 of a little over 1 (so each person infects a bit over 1 person on average). The 'complication rate' is low. It can only be spread once you're showing symptoms of infection, and the virus can survive on a hard surface for only hours. There are flu vaccines available.

The 2019 nCOV virus death rate is unknown, but currently there are 813 deaths and 2132 recoveries, so 27% of the cases which have reached conclusion have been deaths (this is likely to fall, but SARS was over 30%). The R-0 is believed to be over 3, & possibly over 4, so it's extremely contagious. The complication rate is over 20%. It can be spread before symptoms show, and the incubation period is up to 2 weeks. It can survive on hard surfaces for up to 9 days. There are currently no vaccines.

So comparing nCOV to the flu is like comparing an iPhone 11 Pro to a 90's Motorola Startac!

The fact the virus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 9 days is reason enough to not re-open the Foxconn factory until the pandemic has been resolved IMO.

Out of the current 37,588 cases worldwide, 813 of those are deaths, so it's currently a 2% death rate. Although that's bad ... this thing is being blown way out of proportion. Most of the people dying from the coronavirus are the same that die from influenza. 8 billion people and 37 thousand infections is not exactly world-threatening. There's 1.4 billion people crammed into China and that's where 99% of the infections of this virus are ... it's almost non-existent outside of China. Based on the current data ... all this freaking out is simply fear-mongering.

 

[BladeRunner95]

Out of the current 37,588 cases worldwide, 813 of those are deaths, so it's currently a 2% death rate. Although that's bad ... this thing is being blown way out of proportion. Most of the people dying from the coronavirus are the same that die from influenza. 8 billion people and 37 thousand infections is not exactly world-threatening. There's 1.4 billion people crammed into China and that's where 99% of the infections of this virus are ... it's almost non-existent outside of China. Based on the current data ... all this freaking out is simply fear-mongering.

But how can you include the total number of infected to work out the average death rate, when you don't know the conclusion of the vast majority of the cases? Most of the people who've died have done after weeks of being infected, so you can only look at 'concluded' cases - i.e. either they recovered or died, not 'in progress and don't yet know the outcome'.

And of course there are more cases in China, that's where the outbreak started. Do you understand how these things spread? The rest of the world is like 2 months behind where China is now - i.e. pockets of cases springing up, but likely hundreds of infected walking around spreading the virus, but they don't know they have it yet as it's asymptomatic for up to 2 weeks. Watch the number of cases grow.

China have over 400m people in lockdown now, that's like the entire US only allowed to leave their homes every 2 days to get food. Would they do that if it was just flu?..