4 ms·

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 u

by jpgvm 4y ago

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.

traceroute66 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
- passwordoops 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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)?
- permo-w 4y ago
  > 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
  - traceroute66 4y ago
    @permo-w Get lost. My disclaimer was written as is and means exactly what it says, i.e. making clear it was pure speculation and that I knew nothing of the Pharma industry. In other words, I was openly inviting people to dismiss the comment as worthless. There is no reading between the lines to be done.
    - permo-w 4y ago
      I'm objecting to you acting as if including a disclaimer negates the exclusive use of "makes you think" to insinuate. if you don't want to imply, don't include a podcast host "but I'm just a dumb guy" disclaimer at the end, use a phrase that isn't 100% always used to insinuate, or don't say it. it's as simple as that can you see how this works from my reply to your comment? I spent the whole comment slating what you said, then stuck in a disclaimer at the end to point out that I don't really disagree with what you said, nor do I intend to insult you, and yet you still got emotional about it. disclaimers like that are lazy and don't change the fact that you said something. why not just put the same extra effort into making your words more clear?
User23 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
  - fakedang 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    That's two orders of magnitude!
  - Oxidation 4y ago
    > 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.
  - Lio 4y ago
    We need a government that's serious about lowering the cost of energy in the UK. Given how much is available and how cheap it is, it's crazy to do things like ban on-shore wind.
nailer 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  >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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
  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.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >The effort to come to the US acts as a filter. You are right. Increased demand stress is part of the filtering process that will expose the brilliant domestic Indian engineers capable of running these operations to international buyers.
theshrike79 4y ago
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.
- Reubachi 4y ago
  Agreed, and incredible given how recently the cultural revolution stymied Chinese intellectualism for decades. Imagine if in the mid 20th century the West had a movement to ban theoretical science research, culled universities, and moved scientists to hard labor. Would the west have been able to bounce back like China has? The eastern giant we have burdened with our manufacturing processes, logistics, etc has encoded these processes into their identity and are now the experts. Is this bad? Does it HAVE to influence geo-politics so greatly? Can't we all just get along? I think about this often.
qqtt 4y ago
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-a453-2518afcb01f9 https://www.ft.com/content/0d70a823-0fba-49ae-a453-2518afcb0...
- mattboardman 4y ago
  >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 4y ago
  > 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.
naravara 4y ago
> 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.

by jpgvm 4y ago

traceroute66 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
passwordoops 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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)?
permo-w 4y ago
> 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
- traceroute66 4y ago
  @permo-w Get lost. My disclaimer was written as is and means exactly what it says, i.e. making clear it was pure speculation and that I knew nothing of the Pharma industry. In other words, I was openly inviting people to dismiss the comment as worthless. There is no reading between the lines to be done.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    I'm objecting to you acting as if including a disclaimer negates the exclusive use of "makes you think" to insinuate. if you don't want to imply, don't include a podcast host "but I'm just a dumb guy" disclaimer at the end, use a phrase that isn't 100% always used to insinuate, or don't say it. it's as simple as that can you see how this works from my reply to your comment? I spent the whole comment slating what you said, then stuck in a disclaimer at the end to point out that I don't really disagree with what you said, nor do I intend to insult you, and yet you still got emotional about it. disclaimers like that are lazy and don't change the fact that you said something. why not just put the same extra effort into making your words more clear?

User23 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
- fakedang 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  That's two orders of magnitude!
- Oxidation 4y ago
  > 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.
- Lio 4y ago
  We need a government that's serious about lowering the cost of energy in the UK. Given how much is available and how cheap it is, it's crazy to do things like ban on-shore wind.

nailer 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
>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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
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.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  >The effort to come to the US acts as a filter. You are right. Increased demand stress is part of the filtering process that will expose the brilliant domestic Indian engineers capable of running these operations to international buyers.

theshrike79 4y ago

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.

Reubachi 4y ago
Agreed, and incredible given how recently the cultural revolution stymied Chinese intellectualism for decades. Imagine if in the mid 20th century the West had a movement to ban theoretical science research, culled universities, and moved scientists to hard labor. Would the west have been able to bounce back like China has? The eastern giant we have burdened with our manufacturing processes, logistics, etc has encoded these processes into their identity and are now the experts. Is this bad? Does it HAVE to influence geo-politics so greatly? Can't we all just get along? I think about this often.

qqtt 4y ago

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-a453-2518afcb01f9 https://www.ft.com/content/0d70a823-0fba-49ae-a453-2518afcb0...

mattboardman 4y ago
>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 4y ago
> 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.

naravara 4y ago

> 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.