Apple's offshore MFG abilities?
Anyone aware who handles building Apple's Mac desktop product lines?
Presuming Apple is outsourcing their manufacturing has it given Apple ANY advantages to compete with a Dell in terms of cutting down build times, and being able to ramp up to meet demand at will?
Or is Apple no better than the tier 2 and tier 3 PC vendors who offshore their products?
I ask this as I wonder why Apple continues to see problems with keeping up with demand when their products are popular. Such as the iPod and certain mac products.
What will this bode for their future systems?
If Apple is "sitting on" on new machines, one wonders why this is?
Since the G5 announcement Intel has released faster chips which have now made it from announcement to shipping products. 3.2EE, 3.4 etc.
As IBM has announced the faster G5 chip so what is the hold up on Apple's side?
One would think Apple would want to position the G5 series of processors in such a way that they just ship machines with the faster processors in them when then have them in sufficient quantity.
Yet they seem not to be doing this. Hopefully they aren't waiting for a 3.0 yeild in late summer to finaly ship something. The G5 series of machines needs to maintain momemtum.
So what is behind the lack of new G5 systems?
Disinterest in the computer business?
Inability to execute on the manufacturing side?
No marketing strategy?
Presuming Apple is outsourcing their manufacturing has it given Apple ANY advantages to compete with a Dell in terms of cutting down build times, and being able to ramp up to meet demand at will?
Or is Apple no better than the tier 2 and tier 3 PC vendors who offshore their products?
I ask this as I wonder why Apple continues to see problems with keeping up with demand when their products are popular. Such as the iPod and certain mac products.
What will this bode for their future systems?
If Apple is "sitting on" on new machines, one wonders why this is?
Since the G5 announcement Intel has released faster chips which have now made it from announcement to shipping products. 3.2EE, 3.4 etc.
As IBM has announced the faster G5 chip so what is the hold up on Apple's side?
One would think Apple would want to position the G5 series of processors in such a way that they just ship machines with the faster processors in them when then have them in sufficient quantity.
Yet they seem not to be doing this. Hopefully they aren't waiting for a 3.0 yeild in late summer to finaly ship something. The G5 series of machines needs to maintain momemtum.
So what is behind the lack of new G5 systems?
Disinterest in the computer business?
Inability to execute on the manufacturing side?
No marketing strategy?
Comments
Originally posted by planetWC
Or is Apple no better than the tier 2 and tier 3 PC vendors who offshore their products?
HP is a tier 1 vendor and quite a bit of their manufacturing is done by third party offshore manufacturers. Apple actually designs their own motherboards and bridge chips. Which in my mind makes them one of the few real computer companies. Tier 2 and 3 vendors buy motherboards made and designed by other companies.
I ask this as I wonder why Apple continues to see problems with keeping up with demand when their products are popular. Such as the iPod and certain mac products.
Historically all manufacturers have had problems keeping up with demand for hot products. It doesn't matter if we are talking about Macs, PCs, iPods, or Cabbage Patch dolls.
They might have to order PowerMacs in 100,000 unit lots ( for example ) and so its not feasible to start selling an improved product until those units have moved through the inventory channel.
The cost to the manufacturer of buying dies for manufacturing is very high, and they need to produce at least 100,000's, if not millions of units to recoup those costs ( versus soft tooling, like cnc milling, which is cheap for small runs, and lower quality ).
It sounds then as if Apple is definately at a disadvantage in terms of scaling versus say Dell. I mention this as it appears that Dell has no problems rolling out new hardware which utilizes the latest from Intel.
Obviously Apple had problems with Moto before in terms of ability to ramp the PowerPC arch up as well as delivering in sufficient quantity.
Just led me to wonder what impact Apple's manufacturing subcontractors had on rolling out new product in a timely fashion as well as their ability to scale UP production if product demand arose.
It is interesting to consider what impact their manufacturing ability has on their ability to deliver new products when they want to. Presume for example that Apple had switched to Intel CPU's and announced a 3.2 P4. Would we still be waiting *now* for them to launch a 3.2EE Edition or even see a 3.4 system?
Or does Apple have the ability to respond on-demand to push their product line forward when they want to?
If we don't see a speedbump by end of March, then what indeed IS the holdup on new G5 Systems?
Let alone no new display systems which are not linked to needing G5 chips from IBM.
Makes you wonder. I'm waiting to get a G5 system till the speedbump comes, hopefully with a new display option.
Originally posted by planetWC
Thanks for the replies.
It sounds then as if Apple is definately at a disadvantage in terms of scaling versus say Dell. I mention this as it appears that Dell has no problems rolling out new hardware which utilizes the latest from Intel.
Actually Dell's typical MO is to wait for the market for something to develop and then add it to their options. Those p4EE have been out quite a while, and they are pretty much the same thing.
Dell also uses a just in time inventory system where everything is built to order. Using this system Dell is able to guarantee a fairly predictible flow of orders and inventory...enough for a week or so. Apple's demand comes more in peaks and valleys, and Apple needs to anticipate demanfd for product when ramping up a product. Very different approach. A more accurate example would be HP and Sony. Sony has also had [problems keeping up with demand in large retail partners. like Best Buy. Apple really isn't in a position to move to just in time inventory and is very "hit driven" Moving towards a more random pattern of product updates will alleviate inventory problems in the long term...Apple is still in a big transition.
The benefits of the preannouncing...it gives Apple a chance to gauge demand with the pre-orders and ramp up product manufacturing before the first shipments arrive in stores.
Intel dont just supply Dell, they supply lots and lots of people. So while Intel might need to produce a million units, they dont need to sell them all to one company. Not only that, but because they give big discounts to large purchases, they can turn around and sell those boards at lower than market rates when they are obsolete ( ie: Dell dont want them ) and still make a profit compared to what Dell would have paid. On top of that, Dell use, mostly, industry standard parts, so if a motherboard is obsoleted from the top of the line product it can migrate down to a lower level product.
I dont think Apple can do this, not only do they use different manufacturers for each product in their line ( Quanta build G5's, someone else builds iMacs, Apple build G4 powermacs - they did anyway ) and those manufacturers take responsibility for the whole product. Apple dont buy motherboards, they buy whole systems ( maybe sans video cards, drives, memory ). Thus, they cant migrate obsolete inventory down the line. Not that they could anyway, cos you couldnt put a G5 board in an iMac or eMac.
Apple's failure to use standard parts across the line really costs them in terms of inventory flexibility. They have NEVER learnt that lesson. I think it does cost them in terms of responsiveness. The art of putting together machines like the iMac make this a really tuff exercise. Maybe it isnt possible. But I do think that they could design a standardised mix'n'match system based on laptop parts that would do the job. I dont think that the powerbooks share common motherboards, but they should.
Originally posted by mmmpie
Apple's failure to use standard parts across the line really costs them in terms of inventory flexibility.
What the heck are you talking about. Besides the motherboard, power supply and case, all the parts are standard. Standard HD, RAM, optical drive, Video Cards, PCI-X cards, firewire ports and controllers, USB ports and controllers, ethernet ports, etc. Yes, a desktop HD or optical drive can't fit into a laptop, but nobody else does that either.