[HN Gopher] 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in In...
___________________________________________________________________
50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows
Apple's challenge
Author : brianmcgee
Score : 134 points
Date : 2023-02-14 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5mac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5mac.com)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| As the saying goes, Americas worst ideas are always bipartisan.
| The whole decoupling from China hysteria is going to cause
| significant harm to consumers and people vastly underestimate how
| complex manufacturing at the scale, quality, and price is that
| China built out over the years. There's an incredible amount of
| tacit knowledge in industrial processes that cannot easily be
| replicated, it takes a long time to develop.
| blobbers wrote:
| Anyone who's read outsourced code can vouch for the similar QC
| problems. I work with a lot of great Indian software developers;
| none of them worked IN India itself; they tend to be the ones
| that are skilled enough to quickly realize they're able to
| command massively higher wages by leaving India.
|
| India, despite it's reputation as a software outsourcing location
| has never been able to produce exportable quality besides
| textiles. There are no cars or electronics, or chip fabs in this
| country.
|
| The author's description of the government being 'bureaucratic'
| is a nice way of saying corrupt, and certainly has no direct
| bearing on manufacturing yields. That's simply the way business
| is done in a largely domestic economy.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| I suspect that most people who have interacted with remote
| teams based in India, have had the same experiences.
|
| I'm honestly surprised that Apple didn't choose Vietnam or
| Indonesia over India.
| bogomipz wrote:
| They are moving some production to Vietnam, starting with
| some Macbooks:
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/apple-moves-production-
| vietnam-...
|
| I imagine once Apple is confident they will likely add more
| products there.
| delecti wrote:
| The worst I could say about the India based teams I've worked
| with is that some were to-the-letter to a fault. Anything not
| explicitly stated was skipped, where you'd typically expect a
| dev to fill in the unstated but obvious things that you only
| discover while working a task.
|
| But that was at Amazon. At my current gig, the India based
| teams are great. Not _quite_ up to the standards of the US
| teams, but I 'm sure they're more cost effective. They're
| also hungry for more interesting responsibilities, and are
| proactively improving things. It makes me think that Amazon
| just had shitty management over there.
| [deleted]
| blobbers wrote:
| You're willing to throw amazon under the bus, but what
| company are you at now?
| delecti wrote:
| I work at Mercedes-Benz. I'm not secret about it, I just
| don't feel as comfortable being noisy about current
| experiences with their name attached, as I do things from
| several years ago. I don't know that that's necessarily a
| logical reason to make a distinction.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm honestly surprised that Apple didn't choose Vietnam_
|
| There are some Apple products already being made in Vietnam.
| I believe that some iPhone work is going there soon, as well.
| nerdbert wrote:
| I'm sure there are political considerations.
|
| India of late has a capricious regulation problem which makes
| it difficult for tech firms to have predictability.
|
| And everyone already knows you can get decent quality
| manufacturing done in Vietnam. India would like to be
| considered in that same group.
|
| Therefore it's in Apple's interest to present India with the
| opportunity to demonstrate that capability, while giving
| Apple a measure of leverage in cases where India's government
| is considering outlawing encryption or unmoderated forums or
| the shift key or whatever they think will make people stop
| complaining about them today.
| kamakazizuru wrote:
| Does everyone also know about the outsize influence China
| has on Vietnam? If the goal is to de-risk a China / US
| Trade War scenario and prevent Chinese government from
| stealing chip tech etc - then you dont get much by going to
| their pals next door ;)
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Not been involved in manufacturing there. But was very
| pleasantly surprised by the quality of IT and datacenters in
| Jakarta.
| malfist wrote:
| I say this as the whitest white man ever, so please correct me
| if I'm being discriminatory.
|
| I understand it's also a culture issue. India has a culture of
| never telling clients "no" for anything, even if they know they
| can't do it. So you ask for something insanely complex, and
| your contractor in India will throw a mountain of buggy code at
| you. I wouldn't be surprise if that's also the issue here.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| We had some Indian devs in a subsidiary for years, and that
| absolutely tracks.
|
| Cross-cultural communication is an actual field of study, you
| know? But in this case, with the unwillingness to say "no",
| it's a killer. We ended up cutting them loose because even
| though they were cheaper per hour than US-based resources, we
| couldn't make the progress we needed to make. One US dev
| because 3, and that became a whole team, and that's how we
| decided to continue.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I've heard it as Asian cultures in general, being conformist.
| For example, I've heard the same from Japanese devs who have
| to save the face of their superiors, and in Chinese
| manufacturing as well.
| oauea wrote:
| Noticed the same thing. Even implying that what management
| wanted wasn't realistic would make them incredibly
| uncomfortable.
| valdiorn wrote:
| They've done well in the pharma industry recently, but it's
| their one major success.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| I would strongly suggest not calling India's pharma industry
| a success. It is rife with terrible quality and government-
| sponsored coverups.
|
| Here is one book that goes into some detail:Bottle of Lies:
| Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma
|
| Many children lost their lives in Gambia and Uzbekistan after
| consuming tainted cough syrup made in India. The worst part
| is not the error, it is the fact that indian regulators and
| the indian government don't do anything to solve the problem.
| jen729w wrote:
| We're in Australia and after reading that book we'll go out
| of our way to not buy generics manufactured in India.
|
| Weirdly, it doesn't seem like a regulatory requirement to
| print the country of manufacture on the box. All of our
| food is clearly labelled but not pharmaceuticals? An odd
| omission.
|
| I speak as someone who worked in India -- Bangalore, in the
| IT sector -- for 2 years. I loved the place and the people.
| But for sure the work ethic is ... different to Australia.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| the disappointing thing is that India can absolutely
| dominate the sector and supply cheap generics to poor
| countries. They have the expertise and supply chains. All
| while making a tidy profit.
|
| Instead, greed and crony capitalism takes over and
| increasingly, the indian government is getting
| increasingly involved, reacting to any criticism in a
| churlish manner.
|
| Really sad to see the wasted potential in a country like
| India. I suspect this is cultural and not easy to fix.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Why do you suspect it's cultural?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Weirdly, it doesn 't seem like a regulatory requirement
| to print the country of manufacture on the box. All of
| our food is clearly labelled but not pharmaceuticals?_
|
| It's the opposite in the US, for the most part.
| tguvot wrote:
| i am pretty sure that every few weeks I see floating up yet
| another article about some generic made in India recalled due
| to whatever reasons. So while they did capture a big market
| share, i think it's acknowledged that they have quality
| control issues
| ilamont wrote:
| No. There have been years of serious quality problems at
| certain Indian manufacturers. Here's a case from 10 years
| ago:
|
| _During a visit to a facility of leading Indian drugmaker
| Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd last year, U.S. inspectors found
| that a black fiber embedded in a tablet may have been a hair
| from an employee's arm, according to documents seen by
| Reuters. ....
|
| The Mohali plant, in the northern state of Punjab, had not
| been making U.S. exports since last November, when it
| voluntarily recalled its generic version of cholesterol-
| lowering drug Lipitor in the United States due to the
| potential presence of glass particles in certain batches._
|
| Here's another case from last year:
|
| _A parliamentary committee in Gambia said on Tuesday that
| India-based drug maker Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd was
| responsible for the deaths of at least 70 children from acute
| kidney injury and called on the government to pursue legal
| action._
|
| According to a WHO report, "labs contracted by it in Ghana
| and Switzerland found excess levels of ethyleneglycol and
| diethyleneglycol contaminants in the Maiden syrups."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gambia-lawmakers-say-
| ma...
|
| Note that the plant cited in the 2013 case was majority owned
| by a Japanese pharmaceutical company. They still couldn't get
| QC right.
| reaperducer wrote:
| No need to go way back ten years. A recall in the US a
| couple of weeks ago was because of eye drops made in India.
|
| That said, India does produce massive amounts of pharma for
| export around the world. Just read the labels on the boxes
| in the drug stores.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is ironic considering just this last month there was a
| controversy over their pharmaceutical standards with multiple
| children dying from over the counter medicine. They haven't
| done well and there's constant issues with Indian "genetics"
| not actually delivering the amount of a given medicine
| claimed. There's also almost no recourse one can take here.
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| > There are no cars or electronics, or chip fabs in this
| country.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors
| voytec wrote:
| They appear to be the ones with 50% failure rate
|
| > At an iPhone casings factory in Hosur run by Indian
| conglomerate Tata, one of Apple's suppliers, just about one
| out of every two components coming off the production line is
| in good enough shape to eventually be sent to Foxconn,
| Apple's assembly partner for building iPhones, according to a
| person familiar with the matter.
| blobbers wrote:
| Anyone want to vouch for their great experience driving a
| Tata car?
|
| Not exported outside the middle east and India.
|
| Looks like they sold 5 of them in Europe in 2016.
|
| https://carsalesbase.com/europe-
| tata/#:~:text=Tata%20cars%20....
| 1024core wrote:
| You do know that Tata owns Jaguar and Land Rover... right?
| favaq wrote:
| >India, despite it's reputation as a software outsourcing
| location has never been able to produce exportable quality
| besides textiles.
|
| It's precisely a software outsourcing location because they are
| unable to produce anything of value by themselves.
| redtriumph wrote:
| > There are no cars or electronics, or chip fabs in this
| country.
|
| This is only partially true.
|
| India has factories that provide inter-mediate parts required
| for creating final product. For example, a car needs axles,
| engine, dashboard plastics, alloy for body, brakes and
| electronics. You are more likely to find an Indian name in
| top-10 vendors for above parts sorted by marketshare. With the
| exception of engine, transmission, they have expanded.
|
| What it does lack is tack of exporting finished products such
| as iPhone or smartphone or cars or jets. And I think this will
| be a long process. Someone with deep pockets like Apple is
| willing to bet and here we are.
|
| Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Forge
| kerpotgh wrote:
| Cars are one of India's larger exports. Cars are definitely
| manufactured in India- TATA, Mahindra, Maruti etc.
| kube-system wrote:
| Mahindra is the #1 tractor manufacturer in the world.
| blobbers wrote:
| You're right. Nonetheless, not quite at the level one might
| have hoped given the early promises they made years ago. They
| never did create the car of the future to sell to the
| Americans.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| 50% rejection rate sounds incredibly high to me.
|
| I'm not sure the code shipped by the offshored programmers I've
| interacted with built 50% of the time.
|
| Something like 90% of "software engineers" in the country are
| considered unfit for software engineering [0] [1]
|
| [0] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/
|
| [1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/only-6-of-those-
| pa...
| edgyquant wrote:
| Yeah my experience has been abysmal. Now I have met engineers
| in the states from India who were some of the most brilliant
| people I've met, but the companies I've been at that
| offshored drove me crazy. Time complexity and DRY were things
| these individuals had never considered worthy of their time.
| These weren't all cheap hires either: some of them were
| senior engineers making six figures
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| There are scams at every single level in the Indian system.
| Everybody wants a cut and some extra to do their job. It is maybe
| one of the worst places to manufacture in the world. I know Apple
| needs to diversify but Vietnam and other such countries might be
| a better fit. The work ethic is severely lacking in India.
| randcraw wrote:
| Similar difficulties pervade the supply chain as it passes
| through India, where intermediates expect to 'take a taste' of
| the product's value. Just try to personally carry new
| electronics into the country without greasing a palm or two.
| kepler1 wrote:
| I think there's something challenging to put my finger on about
| India, which is something like:
|
| "When you have an overall country atmosphere where you (even if
| you are conscientious and care) think others are not
| conscientious and do not care, then you will come to not be
| conscientious and care either."
|
| So there is an effect where enough people disobey rules or lack
| standards, that eventually no one follows the rules. Traffic is
| ridiculous because no one obeys the rules, manufacturing is
| subpar because no one thinks anyone else will care (or will put
| up with shoddy deliveries).
|
| And this is not some racist / cultural prejudice. It is totally
| changeable. The evidence I have here is that people from India,
| when living in the US, completely adapt and become "positive
| rule-wanting people". There is something about a critical mass of
| rule-breakers that sends a system into a negative spiral. As
| others said, probably China was like that too at some time in the
| recent past. And even the US was (or might become) this way.
|
| The opposite effect is also in force: when you live in Japan, for
| example, even as a visitor, and see that no one is littering on
| the public streets, even when they do not provide trash cans, you
| don't litter either. But let a certain viral % of rule breakers
| take hold, and if your group culture does not value what is being
| broken, you can descend into a loss of discipline.
|
| Again, this is not some prejudice -- it is a human factors /
| malleable / totally changeable thing. But it will take decades I
| think. And have lots of forces trying to stop it from improving.
| Sometimes I think you need to create an isolated bubble where
| enough people agree and see how it can work, to propagate it
| elsewhere. Otherwise the forces of mediocrity pull you back down
| into chaos.
| MPlus88 wrote:
| Indians software programmers are just as shoddy. The only
| difference is that it is much harder to see software quality than
| hardware quality. In hardware you can easily spot the quality by
| looking at the fit and finish and whether things fit together
| nicely. In software it's just code and the quality only manifest
| itself in buggy and hard to maintain software, which can be years
| later.
| chewz wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| onion2k wrote:
| I heard a story about a business that worked with a Chinese chip
| manufacturer once. They ordered 10,000 of a particular
| microprocessor and instructed the company that they would accept
| a maximum of 1 faulty chip in 250.
|
| When the order arrived there were 10,000 chips, and an extra
| little bag with 40 more chips in it. The packing note said that
| they'd sent the faulty ones separately but weren't sure why they
| were needed.
|
| It's likely apocryphal but having worked with some Chinese
| manufacturers I like to believe it.
| betaby wrote:
| That joke is from 80s and Japan.
| tguvot wrote:
| i am pretty sure that origin of this story is about Japanese
| semiconductor companies in 80s. I saw it numerous times over
| the years
| [deleted]
| delecti wrote:
| When I heard the story a decade or two ago, it was Ford buying
| screws or bolts or something from a Japanese manufacturer.
| firstfewshells wrote:
| This is like comparing the code written by an experienced 20 year
| veteran to the code written by a fresh graduate. Give it time,
| India will catch up. Lot of people in the comments taking a dig
| at the work ethic of people in India when most of them will cry a
| river if asked by their employer to RTO 2 days a week.
| rocknor wrote:
| Seriously, it has become a pattern now in every thread related
| to India. Really shows how HN techies are clueless about real
| world trends and live in their small bubbles.
| sabujp wrote:
| where does india get the raw materials and equipment to produce
| the casings, don't they mostly come from the same place?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Probably the same machines, but not the same attention to
| detail from the workers and management.
| 2devnull wrote:
| "Tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa said that it will
| likely take three years or so for Indian suppliers to be capable
| of the kind of volume production needed to make a noticeable dent
| in Chinese production."
|
| I wonder how a war over Taiwan would impact that time table? My
| guess is that it would slow it even further. India has to know
| it's holding all the cards.
| Maursault wrote:
| > I wonder how a war over Taiwan would impact that time table?
|
| There won't be any war if China invades Taiwan, merely
| devastating impact. If China were to invade
| Taiwan, the most-advanced chip factory in the world would be
| rendered "not operable," TSMC Chair Mark Liu said. "The war
| brings no winners, everybody's losers," Liu said. He said an
| invasion would cause economic turmoil for China, Taiwan and
| Western countries.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/apple-chipmaker-tsmc-
| warns-t...
| FpUser wrote:
| If China is cut off from Taiwan's most advanced tech that it
| can not produce on its own it might as well stop caring that
| the factories get destroyed.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would not describe not being able to sell goods due to lack
| of expertise/infrastructure as "holding all the cards".
| LarryMullins wrote:
| If previous world wars are anything to go by, a war with China
| would come with a shift into a wartime economy. Luxury consumer
| goods like iphones and cars would be an afterthought at best.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| In a war with a near peer, yeah, not only luxury goods but
| also civil rights.
| ak39 wrote:
| A few "give it time" replies is emblematic of the culture of
| "chalega" ("it will do") in Indian commerce. This is hardly what
| Apple will tolerate.
| kalesh wrote:
| I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did a
| small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their
| professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had a
| totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino
| company's expectations` - this is so true.
|
| In India, most manufacturing companies or businesses are trying
| to sell what they have or can produce (without any attention to
| detail). As a result, false promises & contracts are prevalent.
| There are no SOP's or any organized sampling process in most
| Indian companies vs Chinese who keep everything very formal &
| organized.
|
| I never visited China & the manufacturing went perfect. In India,
| I personally visited the factories & still could not get the job
| done. All samples were rejected. Lost money & most importantly
| time. It's a damn mess. People seriously lack work ethic.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did
| a small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their
| professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had
| a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino
| company's expectations` - this is so true.
|
| This varies massively from one CM to the next.
|
| If you can get your foot in the door at the higher tier CMs,
| the professionalism and attention to detail will be exactly as
| you described. If you can get in contact with an ambitious
| smaller CM looking to grow with you (their customer), you can
| also find great attention to detail.
|
| OTOH, some of the smaller CMs in China will gladly tell you
| whatever you need to hear in order to send the wire transfer,
| then you'll get back whatever they feel like delivering. That
| is if you don't get bumped by a higher paying customer taking
| your spot on their schedule. You might also get great first
| articles and have great success on the first prototype run, but
| then they'll take the A team off of your line and have the
| night shift run it next time with much less attention to
| detail.
| kalesh wrote:
| Not my experience. I was working on my clothing startup with
| initial investment of about ~$30,000 USD.
|
| INDIA - Met at least 12-15 manufactures in India (medium to
| large scale, $1m ARR to $50m ARR). Only a 1-2 of these had
| any catalogs or samples of different fabric compositions.
| Most wanted an advance to kick-start the process. Sampling
| was a total failure with three of these.
|
| CHINA - Contacted about 10 manufactures in China via Alibaba.
| Each one of them had a very detailed catalog of anywhere in
| between 10-50 fabric compositions. Shipped to my home in a
| week for just $100.
|
| It was Peru where I got the garments manufactured. It did
| cost me about 20-30% more but it was very satisfactory.
| esperent wrote:
| Surprising twist at the end there. How did the
| professionalism and quality in Peru compare to the other
| places?
| nequo wrote:
| Why did you end up going with a Peruvian supplier instead
| of a Chinese one?
| kalesh wrote:
| Peruvian supplier could produce the pima cotton fabric.
| crote wrote:
| I've got the same experience.
|
| Chinese manufacturers can do absolutely amazing work -
| provided you can get them to care. In general they'll
| manufacture _exactly_ what you ask them to. They are also
| very happy to do manual labour to get the job done.
|
| But for most stuff, don't expect too much feedback. Asking
| for feedback on a design to optimize it for production didn't
| really produce anything useful, and they manufactured designs
| which contained obvious mistakes.
|
| In general, you simply get what you pay for!
| [deleted]
| satvikpendem wrote:
| From what I've heard, China also used to be like that, sending
| out cheap samples that didn't meet the specification, and the
| manufacturers there would tell you that they'd do it correctly
| next time, just for the same thing to happen again. But
| eventually they were able to do a good job. Give it time,
| Indian manufacturing is simply not as advanced as China's right
| now but it will be if enough investment is made.
| kalesh wrote:
| It's not about being advanced. It's about keeping promises &
| being honest. It might take a whole generation to fix this.
| szundi wrote:
| Parent commenter is right, China was like that. The
| difference is in the root cause: attitude. Whole world is
| full of ridiculously hard working Chinese people rising up
| from being an immigrants with nothing and running like the
| half economies of countries after 50 years.
| MPlus88 wrote:
| The root cause is more than attitude.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| That's part of what I mean by advanced as well. Yes, it
| might well take a generation, it took China a generation
| too.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Overpromising and underdelivering is what you do when you
| can't meet the expectations and you need to try and get the
| business anyway. What's the alternative? Honestly promise a
| product no one wants to buy. Once you've manufactured a
| billion widgets you no longer need to overpromise and
| underdeliver. It's very similar to the silicon valley "fake
| it till you make it" attitude.
| grantsch wrote:
| Yeah or maybe you could just be honest and not cheat.
| That's a good option too.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I'm not sure it really is. Dial your time machine back to
| Victorian London and I bet you would find lots of
| similarly-run factories. As another poster pointed out,
| the choices are essentially 1) be honest that you are
| kind of a bad factory, and can't really produce anything
| that people want or 2) pretend that you are a great
| factory, get some business, learn and iterate. Eventually
| you can honestly promise high quality, but you have to
| survive that far first.
| serf wrote:
| as someone who has ran a machine shop, that's lovely --
| but rare.
|
| 95 percent of the shops I have known in the past or
| worked with currently would sell you their ability to do
| something while simultaneous upgrading their equipment to
| match the moment the PO is signed off on.
|
| If fab/machine/mfg shops didn't take on work that was
| beyond their capability then the smaller groups would
| starve to death immediately, being unable to use the
| larger contracts to facilitate upgrades.
|
| The trick is to find a shop operator that is aware of
| their rate of capability upgrade and turn-around time,
| that way the delivery dates aren't inaccurate even if the
| shop capabilities need to be 'tuned' (new machines
| bought).
| perfecthjrjth wrote:
| This remark applies to all IT outsourcing companies: more
| billable hours. Love to see how a Chinese IT outsourcing
| company fares in contrast with TCS, Wipro, Infosys of the
| world.
| smoldesu wrote:
| China's government effectively owns all of those factories.
| When something goes wrong, they put their hands directly into
| the machine to fix it.
|
| Hopefully India's government doesn't follow in their
| footsteps, Apple's Chinese manufacturers have a spotty track
| record vis-a-vis exploiting executive power.
| rmah wrote:
| Having dealt with multiple electronics component and
| assembly factories in china... um, no. The government does
| not "effectively own" all those factories. And no, they do
| not step in to fix problems.
| FpUser wrote:
| So they're fixing gazillion of individual shops that do the
| business? I think you give way too much credit.
| hangonhn wrote:
| It's actually the opposite that's true. It was when the
| Chinese government let go of economy that China got good at
| manufacturing. I do wonder if India's legacy of heavy state
| intervention might be the cause of the current issue (from
| the little that I know about India) and if they would
| follow a similar trajectory as more companies start to
| compete. I don't know enough about India to comment on the
| latter part but my family is ethnic Chinese and we own
| factories in China. State intervention is definitely not
| why manufacturing improved in China. There is fierce
| competition among the companies. Talented managers and
| leaders are lured away with big salary increases or start
| their own companies, etc. Ironically, in the beginning a
| lot of managers who worked for state companies were lured
| away by enterprising business people to get their factories
| started. Those same managers would quickly ram up and
| become more productive once they were motivated with
| bonuses and freedom to manage, etc.
|
| I would not be too negative on India. I don't see a reason
| why things won't improve with enough time and motivation.
| rr888 wrote:
| This can be overcome. I know in the UK it was similar, 60s and
| 70s manufacturing quality was very poor. In the 80s factories
| started with quality management processes, 9001 etc and quality
| really dramatically improved.
| serf wrote:
| >I never visited China & the manufacturing went perfect.
|
| it's about the type of manufacturing that these groups are used
| for.
|
| My father took his bicycle part manufacturing to China in the
| early 90s and had his IP and design-work ripped off and
| duplicated to the point of making his formerly successful
| business largely insolvent -- this taught him the value of
| keeping the assembly and finishing work in-house, but
| unfortunately that lesson came too late for his ventures.
|
| Same story with an exercise equipment MFG that I did design
| work for more recently. The joke at the table was "OK, we can
| get the bulk manufactured for X in (Chinese province)... but
| how long until we see these for sale on Taobao?"
| treeman79 wrote:
| Back to the future has a famous scene where Doc says Japan
| produces junk. And Marty says they make the best stuff.
| Reflecting the state of Japan between 1955 and 1985z
|
| Idea is to produce whatever crap you can initially just to get
| started. Eventually you'll get better. China is in middle of
| this cycle.
| kalesh wrote:
| We have been writing software for decades. Still majority of
| the software engineers are only good at copy & paste. Things
| are actually getting worse as most answers you can google,
| when you can't they are just stuck.
| edgyquant wrote:
| There's a different between a developer and an engineer.
| neilv wrote:
| My layperson's impression is that Apple has very demanding
| standards for iPhone manufacturing, and I had some questions:
|
| * Do contracts like this provide good metrics for a manufacturing
| concern aspiring to that level of capability?
|
| * How transferable are the capabilities needed to make an iPhone
| casing on-budget with low defect rate? For example, does it get
| you 1/4 of what you need to make a touchscreen (e.g., logistics
| management, worker process culture, leadership)?
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| I predict this rate will fall much lower over time (assuming
| Apple sticks with the effort there).
| MPlus88 wrote:
| "It's likely that similar issues will arise with new Apple
| suppliers in other countries too."
|
| Not at all Apple. Move to Vietnam and you can duplicate the
| success you have in China. Indians are only good at talking a
| good talk.
| rocknor wrote:
| > Indians are only good at talking a good talk.
|
| Citation needed.
| MPlus88 wrote:
| Angela Saini in her book "Geek Nation: How Indian Science is
| Taking Over the World" bragged that India is a up and coming
| scientific superpower. That book was published a decade ago.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Thing is this is also still the really basic stuff. It's only
| going to get worse as they attempt to shift more complicated
| things.
|
| People tend to drastically underestimate the both the scale and
| sophistication of manufacturing in China.
|
| For certain products the only reasonable alternatives to China
| are going to be South Korea and Japan in the medium term as they
| are the only other hubs with the required sophistication in
| electronics, batteries, etc.
|
| However you will need to pay a significant premium over China and
| probably still face lower yields and end up sending said parts
| somewhere else for final assembly etc.
| User23 wrote:
| The United States and Europe still have the capability to make
| these casings, but it's "too expensive." I imagine so is Japan
| for that matter.
| valdiorn wrote:
| When I was looking at machining in China (I built some
| aluminium guitar prototypes) the cost between European
| fabricators and China wasn't just significant - it was an
| order of magnitude.
|
| I got a handful of absolutely impeccable prototypes from my
| Chinese manufacturers, for about 350 USD a piece. The few UK
| machine shops that even bothered answering my emails and
| phonecalls quoted about 10-15k per unit.
| Oxidation wrote:
| > The few UK machine shops that even bothered answering my
| emails and phonecalls
|
| Sounds familiar. Just getting someone local to take your
| money is like pulling teeth sometimes. Eventually went with
| someone halfway across the the country mostly because they
| actually bothered to reply at all.
| fakedang wrote:
| I'll be honest, pricing in Europe is bonkers for many other
| sectors too.
|
| We are investing into a drug development project, and had
| to choose a clinical trial partner. A small no-name
| European CRO quoted us ~$40 million. An established Indian
| company with a track record of launching FDA approved
| products in the US market quoted us $4 million. And they
| were supposed to be the "marquee" option.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| That's two orders of magnitude!
| naravara wrote:
| > People tend to drastically underestimate the both the scale
| and sophistication of manufacturing in China.
|
| I doubt Apple is underestimating it. Shenzhen wasn't built in a
| day. They will need to get their reps in before they can start
| down the path to match China on quality. Apple probably figures
| it's worth the up front cost to harden against geopolitical
| risk.
| nailer wrote:
| > People tend to drastically underestimate the both the scale
| and sophistication of manufacturing in China.
|
| Also how little tech workers in India care about what they do.
|
| This isn't a racial observation - Indians outside India are
| just as conscientious as Asians or Europeans are and are not
| included in this observation. Rather it's a cultural
| observation that's probably come about as a result of the
| outsourcing culture and lack of advancement opportunities that
| comes along with it.
| trasz3 wrote:
| >tech workers in India care about what they do
|
| Are you trying to say the Indian tech workers have much more
| adult attitude to their employment, as opposed to their
| western friends who are happy to sacrifice themselves ad
| maiorem corpo gloriam?
| FpUser wrote:
| There is a big difference between doing 2 pieces of
| whatever with high quality and refusing to do 5 vs just
| doing crappy job in general
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I've observed that as well, with our local Indian developers
| as compared with the ones in India itself. The effort to come
| to the US acts as a filter. I've seen the same kind of filter
| with regards to Mexico. Go to Mexico and they operate on
| "Mexican Time" (their words, not mine). But when it comes to
| manual labor in the US, who works the hardest? Mexicans,
| almost every time. The difference in motivation is stark.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| There is a (in)famous interview with Steve Jobs about why Apple
| is manufacturing in China.
|
| Paraphrased it went something like "we could fit all experts in
| $hardware_field in this conference room, but in China we can't
| fit them in a stadium".
|
| The scale at which China has built up an educated work force is
| at a staggering scale.
| qqtt wrote:
| Do you think Apple is drastically underestimating the scale and
| sophistication required to move their manufacturing? Do you
| think Tim Cook made a strategic error here, owing partially to
| his lack of understanding of the involvement of these
| processes?
|
| There will be growing pains moving and scaling manufacturing
| anywhere. The fact that there are early obstacles and hurdles
| does not mean we should simply throw up our hands and say
| "whelp, looks like China is the only option, we have no choice
| but to stick there!".
|
| Apple is developing manufacturing infrastructure to derisk
| their supply chain. Because they have 50% rejection rates for
| iPhone casings at one particular manufacturing facility in
| India does not really imply anything other than teething issues
| with scaling up.
|
| The original Financial Times original this blog post is based
| on fleshes out the issues and obstacles in greater depth IMO
| and is worth a read:
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/0d70a823-0fba-49ae-a453-2518afcb0...
| jpgvm wrote:
| I believe Apples decision isn't based on viability of moving
| manufacturing to India but rather requirements of the Indian
| government to access that market.
| mattboardman wrote:
| >Do you think Tim Cook made a strategic error here, owing
| partially to his lack of understanding of the involvement of
| these processes?
|
| Appeal to authority is just speculation at the end of the
| day. It's just as possible a brilliant CEO with tons of
| supply chain experience made a mistake or was forced into a
| bad decision.
|
| >The fact that there are early obstacles and hurdles does not
| mean we should simply throw up our hands and say "whelp,
| looks like China is the only option, we have no choice but to
| stick there!".
|
| Is anyone saying that?
|
| >Because they have 50% rejection rates for iPhone casings at
| one particular manufacturing facility in India does not
| really imply anything other than teething issues with scaling
| up.
|
| It does imply at the least that the processes Apple has used
| in other regions doesn't translate quickly. There are
| definitely additional questions raised. Is this a labor
| quality control issue? Procurement? Worse vendors? Or as you
| speculate, this is all part of the start-up process.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Do you think Tim Cook made a strategic error here
|
| Honestly, yeah. Doubling down on China was a mistake, and now
| there are no easy outs for the hardware side of things. Apple
| tried manufacturing the Mac Pro in the US, but I doubt the
| numbers on that added up in the US' favor.
|
| Correcting course is the right move to make now, but people
| were right when they called Apple's Chinese supply chain a
| deal with the devil. Now the devil has come to take their
| dues, and the first world is scrambling to make sense of it
| all.
|
| I'm tired of this "4D chess" mindset around Chinese
| manufacturing. It's bad for everyone but the Chinese
| government, and you can't pretend like it's a sustainable
| mindset. Supporting the systematic oppression, sterilization
| and execution of entire ethnic groups is not worth a new
| iPhone next year.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Is this a parody/troll account?
|
| Your about is: "Thought-thinker. Media luminary.
| Provocateur. Serious discussions only. All
| thoughts/opinions are my own, only a small fraction of them
| are good.
|
| email: smol at toast dot cyou"
|
| And every comment made in this post reads as if they were
| copy-pasted from reddit.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Thing is this is also still the really basic stuff. It's only
| going to get worse as they attempt to shift more complicated
| things.
|
| Indeed.
|
| And stats like that does make you kind of worry about
| pharmaceuticals where India is something like number two
| worldwide as supplier of APIs to the global Pharma industry.
|
| API = Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient, or typically described
| as "active ingredient" on the labelling of the pills you take.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm not making claims or insinuations here, I've
| insufficient knowledge of Pharma to do so. I said "makes you
| think" for a reason, i.e. pure speculation, probably wrong.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Industrial chemistry is not easy but it's still substantially
| easier than electronics manufacturing and much less reliant
| on well trained workforce and logistics so it's likely fine
| but tbh I don't have the background to know either.
| randcraw wrote:
| Yes, but the issue with pharmaceuticals is safety --
| compliance with regulation and close monitoring of
| medication ingredient quality. That's something that
| numerous Indian manufacturers continue to have difficulty
| ensuring.
| permo-w wrote:
| > Disclaimer: I'm not making claims or insinuations here,
| I've insufficient knowledge of Pharma to do so. I said "makes
| you think" for a reason, i.e. pure speculation, probably
| wrong
|
| I don't accept this disclaimer. "makes you ..." is not a
| phrase people use when they're trying to avoid implications
| or insinuations. the opposite, in fact, so much so that I'd
| say that it's probably as often used seriously as it is
| humorously to mock conspiracy types who might structure an
| argument like that.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting that you're making a
| conspiracy theory, or that I even disagree with your comment,
| just that the disclaimer doesn't hold water
| passwordoops wrote:
| The difference is India's been an API manufacturing hub for a
| while now, so I would think the hiccups are likely out of the
| system at this point. Pharma is also much less manual, and
| has standards and guidelines like GMP, so generally easier to
| export.
|
| But to really understand what 50% means in the context of
| Apple, it would be interesting to see how long it took China
| to achieve such great numbers in tech manufacturing, and even
| seeing how long it took India to become acceptable to pharma
| QA standards
| randcraw wrote:
| Excluding the recent impurities (NDMA and NDEA) that took
| losartan, irbesartan, and valsartan off the market for
| months -- made by Hetero Labs, Mylan Laboratories, and
| Aurobindo Pharma in India (and Zhejiang Huahai in China)?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _He also suggested that Apple, too, will need to adapt -
| especially when it comes to dealing with the bureaucratic
| government._
|
| I can't imagine how a bureaucratic government could be the cause
| of a 50% failure rate for these components. More likely apathetic
| attitudes is the cause of both.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| FpUser wrote:
| A few years ago I watched an interview on youtube. Some CEO was
| describing doing business with India and China. Yes for China it
| was "can do, want to do, will do" attitude and he was generally
| happy. Indians - not that much. I will try to find the interview
| and post a link later. His description of doing business in India
| was a gem to watch
| miguelazo wrote:
| Sounds like the "decoupling" is off to a great start!
|
| Reminds me of my experience at companies with outsourced IT
| support.
| logifail wrote:
| > This 50 per cent "yield" fares badly compared with Apple's goal
| for zero defects
|
| Q1: Is Apple QCing everything before shipping to assembly?
|
| Q2: Surely quality issues should be the _supplier 's_ problem,
| not [just] Apple's, and hence a zero defects target should be the
| _supplier 's_ goal, not [just] Apple's?
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Q1: Is Apple QCing everything before shipping to assembly?
|
| Maybe they (seemingly justifiably) had sufficient upfront
| concerns about quality that they are sampling at a much higher
| rate than they would normally.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| When first qualifying a supplier, I expect IQC to fairly
| exhaustively test every incoming part. As the supplier gets
| better at OQC you can start dialing back your IQC.
|
| This is all fairly normal for large scale manufacturing in my
| experience.
|
| You want everything to meet spec, but the spec won't cover
| everything, and especially at the beginning the supplier may or
| may not even be able to meet spec in volume.
| logifail wrote:
| > This is all fairly normal for large scale manufacturing in
| my experience
|
| Indeed.
|
| So why does the original article claim that the "problem" is
| due to differing attitudes of Indian vs Chinese suppliers?
|
| EDIT: Wouldn't the "problem" likely also occur if you were to
| switch from one Chinese supplier to another [completely
| unrelated] Chinese supplier?
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| It depends on how good their process control is. A low
| yield rate indicates poor process control, and that will
| vary from supplier to supplier.
| resfirestar wrote:
| I don't think problems like this were unexpected, everyone knows
| India's manufacturing sector is less mature and not hyper-
| competitive like China's. Companies like Tata especially are
| going to be cautious to a fault about changing processes or
| spending a lot of money on improvements, because that attitude is
| what made them successful in India so far. The question is, will
| this new interest from Apple and others allow the country's
| electronics industry to grow and see the more capable businesses
| outcompete the rest?
| tristor wrote:
| Unsurprising for anyone that has done business in India. This is
| not a dig on Indian people, but the society they operate in is
| incredibly incredibly corrupt, on a scale which is basically
| unthinkable to anyone who hasn't been directly exposed to it. I
| cannot imagine doing business of the precision that Apple is
| trying to achieve in India. There are many other lower precision
| arrangements that can be worked out in India, but something like
| an iPhone seems impossible without a complete sea change in how
| Indian society operates at every level.
|
| Anybody who has done business in India is never surprised by the
| number of spam, scam boiler rooms, and other nefarious global
| criminal organizations operating in India. It's all part of the
| same pervasive corruption within Indian society.
| flerchin wrote:
| So a 50% acceptance rate? Give it time.
| kamakazizuru wrote:
| This is an article that paraphrases another article from the
| Financial Times (https://archive.is/iuXAm) both of which lack any
| real sources or facts from Apple themselves. The only people
| quoted are a random Bain consultant and Vivek Wadhwa who
| basically shows up with an opinion whenever anyone says "India" -
| regardless of whether he actually understands the industry or
| not.
|
| None of this is to say that the problems might not be real, but
| bear in mind that China literally started producing electronics
| in the 80s, a 40 year headstart. And even then, until the early
| 2000s even in India Chinese goods had the reputation of being low
| quality, and for good reason. It takes years of experience on
| multiple levels to achieve the level of production that Apple
| targets. But it's not unachievable, even in India.
|
| The country has pulled this off in other sectors - IT, Aerospace,
| Automotives and Pharmaceuticals to name a few.
|
| This is HN so the moment I say IT and India in the same sentence
| a megathread of outsourcing woes will start to form. But Tech in
| India is much more than outsourcing for the last 2 decades -
| solid tech companies serving global and local markets like
| Freshworks, Zomato, Zoho, BharatPe, RazorPay, Chargebee etc have
| emerged.
|
| Apple is big enough and has sufficient resources to have known
| that manufacturing in India will have a learning curve. It's not
| like they sent a team of 5 engineers on a plane and told them to
| go get it built. Apple has been operating in the country for well
| over a decade now - it's only just starting to scale things up on
| the production side. This will also pass.
| nerdbert wrote:
| > bear in mind that China literally started producing
| electronics in the 80s, a 40 year headstart
|
| Pretty sure Indian electronic manufacturing didn't start with
| this Apple project.
| kamakazizuru wrote:
| at this scale and complexity it's definitely one of the
| earlier projects. Apple does almost nothing "off the shelf" -
| tools, processes and often even materials are engineered to
| their specific needs. That's different from the more lego
| like manufacturing that most electronics require.
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