There's a fairly new article on Apple manufacturing strategy, Apple's old manufacturing efforts in Fremont, and why Foxconn became the better choice. Not a hard read, and as a pleasant bonus it generally makes sense unlike some other articles I've come across.
Does not make sense, first Apple's factory in Fremont was open longer then 2 yrs it operated into the early 90's and when it shut down it was moved to Colorado Second it was highly automated as well as their factory they had in Singapore. Those two factory actually had less hourly workers than the factory they had in Ireland (job program for Cork Ireland). Also most of the equipment Apple had in the Fremont factory was leased not owned like many companies did at the time, why manufacturing technology was rapidly changing at the time and Apple knew this and it allow them to swap out last years model for this years model if it made sense. They did not have to worry about the cost of disposing or selling capital equipment since they did not own it.
I would say the Apple Factories at the time were highly flexible since they could build any number of product on those lines from Mac of various configurations to Powerbooks. I can not tell you what the thinking was at the time to shut down all their factories, but it not what the article is saying since they did have manufacturing strategy at the time and it works really well. If they keep increasing their automation labor costs would not have been a factor today. Ask GE who was the largest producers of Incandescent lights in the world why they never sent it operations overseas. It is all automated and the labor cost and shipping cost would be too high (BTW, if you did not know, in China you can not automate what a human can otherwise do). GE did the cost benefit analysis many time on moving bulb production to China and each time it show China would not be cheaper but more costly. Yeah GE is shutting off the lights in those factories since people want LED and CFL which are all made in China by human hands.
The author for the most part is speculated about reasons, and I will tell you I had first hand knowledge with all of Apple factory and they did not have quality issue and burn in was not due to manufacturing quality problems but due to the fact component supplier was not doing what they need to do, not true to day.
I was to Spectulate why Fremond was such down it was due to labor issue, rumors about unions trying to work their way in. However, in reality it was the thing to do, move of shore and use contract manufacturing since it was the rally cry of the time. I remember they saying we have to chase the grass huts to get the lowest labor costs.
How so? From what I've seen Ubuntu seems more robust of a smartphone and tablet OS than Titzen which Samsung seems to be pushing toward their feature phones devices.
I think this shows exactly the complexity of trying to support a healthy market simultaneously with healthy workers' rights!
Apple devices out of Foxconn probably have some of the highest margins in the entire market. So if Foxconn is claiming their profits from supplying Apple are declining, I would guess they're really referring to the cost of labor standards that Apple is forcing them to address. The fact that Foxconn thinks it can claim more profit from building a low-end smartphone with a low-end platform - should cause great concern about what they intend to do on the worker environment side of the equation
The name "Foxconn" has an extremely negative connotation for most people, deserved or not. Due to media hysteria and sensationalism (as well as Apple hit pieces) I'm sure most people think of "slavery", abuse, suicide, etc when they think of Foxconn. Not the best for branding of consumer goods.
It would be more appropriate (if less accurate) to say that LG & FoxConn are trying to get away from the Android monopoly than the Apple-Android duopoly. They don't have the option to produce non-Apple iOS devices.
However it does it, Apple needs to get control of its own fabrication. China may be cheap, but it's the Wild West of the East, and the hanging judges over there will always protect their own. Apple is basically giving away its IP to the lowest bidder.
Err, you do realize webOS is basically palmOS? In what way is FireFoxOS like PalmOS...?
PalmOS has nothing in common with webOS. The latter is a multitasking Linux kernel system, with an HTML based UI.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Creid1987
The problem for them is brand recognition. I'm sure they can produce a might cheap phone though.
HTC used to be a name unknown to most consumers, even though they designed and built many Windows Mobile and Palm devices for other companies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Huber
However it does it, Apple needs to get control of its own fabrication. China may be cheap, but it's the Wild West of the East, and the hanging judges over there will always protect their own. Apple is basically giving away its IP to the lowest bidder.
Even though I dislike Microsoft and it's bug ridden and unintuitive OS it did standardize the PC world on one OS. Now it looks like we are going to have a real hodgepotch of mobile OS's all essentially trying to snare us users into their separate ecosystems/clouds to varying degrees. Well it should give us lots of jobs doing data transfers and compatibaility software
I can understand why a manufacturer would want to differentiate its products from the competition, but there's no "win" in this for the customer. Why would I want to buy a phone from a company that has (1) no demonstrable quality customer service, (2) no profusion of apps, (3) and no ecosystems at all to add value to the hardware.
Witness the problem Microsoft and Blackberry have encountered because of a dearth of apps. And Microsoft had even PAID developers to write apps for Windows phone 8, and that didn't over cone the hesitancy of people to jump on board the Microsoft/Nokia bus, or even the Microsoft-Surface burning cruise ship.
Too many manufacturers think this is all about the hardware/OS, but the home/corporate/education buyers want the whole ecosystem and want to know that the product won't get orphaned in short order.
There's a fairly new article on Apple manufacturing strategy, Apple's old manufacturing efforts in Fremont, and why Foxconn became the better choice. Not a hard read, and as a pleasant bonus it generally makes sense unlike some other articles I've come across.
Kind of a strange article, given that it draws speculative conclusions primarily from an old promotional video that Apple produced. Yet, that same video disproves a couple of the article's central premises -- that Apple's Fremont Macintosh assembly facility closed after only two years and that it was too "impractical" to add new product lines. Given that the video shows Macintosh SE and Macintosh II models that didn't come out until spring 1987 -- 1) the facility still operated more than three years after the original Macintosh's introduction; and 2) the facility readily adapted to the addition of two brand new models, one of which used an open architecture completely different from the other Macintosh models (and even though it shared the same exterior dimensions as the other compact Macintosh models, the Mac SE used a very different motherboard design).
My understanding is that the Fremont facility operated into the early-90s. When Apple designed the Fremont manufacturing facility, I recall that they dubbed it "the machine that will build the machine."
Even the article itself had a disclaimer about the speculative nature of its conclusions:
Quote:
Some of our conclusions in this article are informed speculation rather than proven fact. The scenes are often suggestive of issues that, in ordinary consulting work, would be confirmed or dismissed with additional data.
Well, at least it was honest -- unlike a lot of the so-called analyst reports coming out of Wall Street nowadays.
Ubuntu is so much better and interesting than this...
I was thinking the same thing. The Ubuntu mobile OS is pretty amazing. Not sure how useful it would be without an app ecosystem but probably as many if not far more than firefox.
worse case scenario most ubuntu apps would be html5, just like ALL of those firefox apps.
However it does it, Apple needs to get control of its own fabrication. China may be cheap, but it's the Wild West of the East, and the hanging judges over there will always protect their own. Apple is basically giving away its IP to the lowest bidder.
And the USA just cares about those 160 billion and taxes, as recent events show. Maybe they are even more greedy and worse than China.
Apple's solution? Buy their own land and become independent. They have the dollars. lol
As much as I like Firefox the last thing we really need is yet another OS. The smartphone ecosystem isn't just Android and iOS. It also includes Windows Phone (joke all you want it is actually a decent OS and this comes from a person with many Apple devices), Blackberry (for now at least), China's version of Android (I forget the real name), and various other OSes that are still floating out there.
Just pick one of the others and start supporting it!
How so? From what I've seen Ubuntu seems more robust of a smartphone and tablet OS than Titzen which Samsung seems to be pushing toward their feature phones devices.
Market share is more important than feature set or current stability, or really anything else. Firefox OS and Ubuntu are doomed from the start, only Tizen has any hope at all, since it will be used by Samsung. Going with anything other than Android or Tizen is a waste of time.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
There's a fairly new article on Apple manufacturing strategy, Apple's old manufacturing efforts in Fremont, and why Foxconn became the better choice. Not a hard read, and as a pleasant bonus it generally makes sense unlike some other articles I've come across.
http://www.strategosinc.com/articles/apple-foxconn-strategy.htm
Does not make sense, first Apple's factory in Fremont was open longer then 2 yrs it operated into the early 90's and when it shut down it was moved to Colorado Second it was highly automated as well as their factory they had in Singapore. Those two factory actually had less hourly workers than the factory they had in Ireland (job program for Cork Ireland). Also most of the equipment Apple had in the Fremont factory was leased not owned like many companies did at the time, why manufacturing technology was rapidly changing at the time and Apple knew this and it allow them to swap out last years model for this years model if it made sense. They did not have to worry about the cost of disposing or selling capital equipment since they did not own it.
I would say the Apple Factories at the time were highly flexible since they could build any number of product on those lines from Mac of various configurations to Powerbooks. I can not tell you what the thinking was at the time to shut down all their factories, but it not what the article is saying since they did have manufacturing strategy at the time and it works really well. If they keep increasing their automation labor costs would not have been a factor today. Ask GE who was the largest producers of Incandescent lights in the world why they never sent it operations overseas. It is all automated and the labor cost and shipping cost would be too high (BTW, if you did not know, in China you can not automate what a human can otherwise do). GE did the cost benefit analysis many time on moving bulb production to China and each time it show China would not be cheaper but more costly. Yeah GE is shutting off the lights in those factories since people want LED and CFL which are all made in China by human hands.
The author for the most part is speculated about reasons, and I will tell you I had first hand knowledge with all of Apple factory and they did not have quality issue and burn in was not due to manufacturing quality problems but due to the fact component supplier was not doing what they need to do, not true to day.
I was to Spectulate why Fremond was such down it was due to labor issue, rumors about unions trying to work their way in. However, in reality it was the thing to do, move of shore and use contract manufacturing since it was the rally cry of the time. I remember they saying we have to chase the grass huts to get the lowest labor costs.
LOL. Good one. Freudian slip?
Quote:
Originally Posted by starbird73
Two things from this.
(1) FirefoxOS sounds a lot like webOS. LG bought webOS, hmm...
Err, you do realize webOS is basically palmOS? In what way is FireFoxOS like PalmOS...?
Apple devices out of Foxconn probably have some of the highest margins in the entire market. So if Foxconn is claiming their profits from supplying Apple are declining, I would guess they're really referring to the cost of labor standards that Apple is forcing them to address. The fact that Foxconn thinks it can claim more profit from building a low-end smartphone with a low-end platform - should cause great concern about what they intend to do on the worker environment side of the equation
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978
And Tizen is so much more interesting than Ubuntu or firefox OS
The fact that Tizen, Ubuntu, and Firefox seem to be popular with the techie crowd assures their utter failure in the marketplace.
It would be more appropriate (if less accurate) to say that LG & FoxConn are trying to get away from the Android monopoly than the Apple-Android duopoly. They don't have the option to produce non-Apple iOS devices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 65C816
Err, you do realize webOS is basically palmOS? In what way is FireFoxOS like PalmOS...?
PalmOS has nothing in common with webOS. The latter is a multitasking Linux kernel system, with an HTML based UI.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Creid1987
The problem for them is brand recognition. I'm sure they can produce a might cheap phone though.
HTC used to be a name unknown to most consumers, even though they designed and built many Windows Mobile and Palm devices for other companies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Huber
However it does it, Apple needs to get control of its own fabrication. China may be cheap, but it's the Wild West of the East, and the hanging judges over there will always protect their own. Apple is basically giving away its IP to the lowest bidder.
What IP is Apple giving away to manufacturers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul94544
Even though I dislike Microsoft and it's bug ridden and unintuitive OS it did standardize the PC world on one OS. Now it looks like we are going to have a real hodgepotch of mobile OS's all essentially trying to snare us users into their separate ecosystems/clouds to varying degrees. Well it should give us lots of jobs doing data transfers and compatibaility software
I can understand why a manufacturer would want to differentiate its products from the competition, but there's no "win" in this for the customer. Why would I want to buy a phone from a company that has (1) no demonstrable quality customer service, (2) no profusion of apps, (3) and no ecosystems at all to add value to the hardware.
Witness the problem Microsoft and Blackberry have encountered because of a dearth of apps. And Microsoft had even PAID developers to write apps for Windows phone 8, and that didn't over cone the hesitancy of people to jump on board the Microsoft/Nokia bus, or even the Microsoft-Surface burning cruise ship.
Too many manufacturers think this is all about the hardware/OS, but the home/corporate/education buyers want the whole ecosystem and want to know that the product won't get orphaned in short order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
There's a fairly new article on Apple manufacturing strategy, Apple's old manufacturing efforts in Fremont, and why Foxconn became the better choice. Not a hard read, and as a pleasant bonus it generally makes sense unlike some other articles I've come across.
http://www.strategosinc.com/articles/apple-foxconn-strategy.htm
Kind of a strange article, given that it draws speculative conclusions primarily from an old promotional video that Apple produced. Yet, that same video disproves a couple of the article's central premises -- that Apple's Fremont Macintosh assembly facility closed after only two years and that it was too "impractical" to add new product lines. Given that the video shows Macintosh SE and Macintosh II models that didn't come out until spring 1987 -- 1) the facility still operated more than three years after the original Macintosh's introduction; and 2) the facility readily adapted to the addition of two brand new models, one of which used an open architecture completely different from the other Macintosh models (and even though it shared the same exterior dimensions as the other compact Macintosh models, the Mac SE used a very different motherboard design).
My understanding is that the Fremont facility operated into the early-90s. When Apple designed the Fremont manufacturing facility, I recall that they dubbed it "the machine that will build the machine."
Even the article itself had a disclaimer about the speculative nature of its conclusions:
Quote:
Some of our conclusions in this article are informed speculation rather than proven fact. The scenes are often suggestive of issues that, in ordinary consulting work, would be confirmed or dismissed with additional data.
Well, at least it was honest -- unlike a lot of the so-called analyst reports coming out of Wall Street nowadays.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
Quote:
Originally Posted by pedromartins
Ubuntu is so much better and interesting than this...
I was thinking the same thing. The Ubuntu mobile OS is pretty amazing. Not sure how useful it would be without an app ecosystem but probably as many if not far more than firefox.
worse case scenario most ubuntu apps would be html5, just like ALL of those firefox apps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Huber
However it does it, Apple needs to get control of its own fabrication. China may be cheap, but it's the Wild West of the East, and the hanging judges over there will always protect their own. Apple is basically giving away its IP to the lowest bidder.
And the USA just cares about those 160 billion and taxes, as recent events show. Maybe they are even more greedy and worse than China.
Apple's solution? Buy their own land and become independent. They have the dollars. lol
Just pick one of the others and start supporting it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
How so? From what I've seen Ubuntu seems more robust of a smartphone and tablet OS than Titzen which Samsung seems to be pushing toward their feature phones devices.
Market share is more important than feature set or current stability, or really anything else. Firefox OS and Ubuntu are doomed from the start, only Tizen has any hope at all, since it will be used by Samsung. Going with anything other than Android or Tizen is a waste of time.