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Don't know what to tell you. All I can say, is my dad recieved a hell of an offer to return (and so did his buddies). The people he trained all had PhD's from

Don't know what to tell you. All I can say, is my dad recieved a hell of an offer to return (and so did his buddies). The people he trained all had PhD's from various universities around the globe and were supposedly excellent material science engineers. My dad had a high school education, but was trained/worked for decades in this particular field. The molds that make every component in a MacBook need to be better than those assembling them. The skill to plug in a keyboard or even run a machine to make a keyboard, is not the same as designing or creating the molds of the keyboard. Apple does all of that (to my knowledge) in the U.S. The reason is likely security of their IP and that they have a critical mass of skilled people here, able to out perform elsewhere. Also, it's easy to ship designs anywhere, not so much material goods.

princetontiger 10y ago
This is super interesting... apparently we have also the lost ability to find specialized welders for many naval vessels... starting salaries are around $300K for the right folks in the US. hell of an offer indeed
bpizzi 10y ago
Only plastic parts really needs a mold to be produced. Metallic parts are produced on machining machines where the real knownledge sits in the ISO programmer head. And plastic parts are more and more reserved for low end product, whereas high end products are all made of metal (think about a plane architecture being made of plastic instead of aluminium: this will not happen soon). So to be honest about your dad situation: from an industrial point of view I think the people outsourcing your dad's job in China were right: they did loose the know-how on keyboards molds and they do face a problem regarding keyboard quality nowadays, but that value gained in outsourcing low end parts was invested in machining technologies with very local jobs garanteed for a long industrial time. I'm sorry about your dad situation in that systemic change, and I'm glad he managed to move to another field, but what's at stake here is really what a was proposed in a parent comment: 'manual' labour being replaced with automation (and human tragedies involved unfortunately...).
- tim333 10y ago
  >think about a plane architecture being made of plastic instead of aluminium: this will not happen soon Actually the trend is towards carbon fiber (reinforced plastic) laid out on a mold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUp9Yl6-QBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUp9Yl6-QBM
  - bpizzi 10y ago
    You're right, but that's merely a trend, mainly seen in fablabs and r&d department. The heavy-duty first-range aeronautic suppliers are all into machining and assembling aluminium (and other metals) parts for boeing/airbus.

princetontiger 10y ago

This is super interesting... apparently we have also the lost ability to find specialized welders for many naval vessels... starting salaries are around $300K for the right folks in the US. hell of an offer indeed

bpizzi 10y ago

Only plastic parts really needs a mold to be produced. Metallic parts are produced on machining machines where the real knownledge sits in the ISO programmer head. And plastic parts are more and more reserved for low end product, whereas high end products are all made of metal (think about a plane architecture being made of plastic instead of aluminium: this will not happen soon). So to be honest about your dad situation: from an industrial point of view I think the people outsourcing your dad's job in China were right: they did loose the know-how on keyboards molds and they do face a problem regarding keyboard quality nowadays, but that value gained in outsourcing low end parts was invested in machining technologies with very local jobs garanteed for a long industrial time. I'm sorry about your dad situation in that systemic change, and I'm glad he managed to move to another field, but what's at stake here is really what a was proposed in a parent comment: 'manual' labour being replaced with automation (and human tragedies involved unfortunately...).

tim333 10y ago
>think about a plane architecture being made of plastic instead of aluminium: this will not happen soon Actually the trend is towards carbon fiber (reinforced plastic) laid out on a mold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUp9Yl6-QBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUp9Yl6-QBM
- bpizzi 10y ago
  You're right, but that's merely a trend, mainly seen in fablabs and r&d department. The heavy-duty first-range aeronautic suppliers are all into machining and assembling aluminium (and other metals) parts for boeing/airbus.