{"id":31616,"date":"2021-02-09T16:44:17","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T21:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=31616"},"modified":"2021-02-09T16:44:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T21:44:17","slug":"apples-supply-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/09\/apples-supply-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s Supply Chain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Carr and Mark Gurman<\/a> (tweet<\/a>, via Josh Centers<\/a>, MacRumors<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Biden’s question put Cook, who’d become Apple’s CEO the previous August, in an awkward position. He was the architect of the strategy to outsource Apple’s production to China, a trend of increasing concern for the Obama administration. But Cook was also, as it turned out, extremely effective at deflecting political pressure. He was certainly more diplomatic than his old boss. Obama once asked Jobs the same question, and Jobs’s characteristically blunt reply landed<\/a> on the front page of the New York Times<\/em>: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” Cook, though, was smooth and noncombative—so much so, in fact, that Riccitiello can’t recall exactly what he said to Biden. By the end of that year, Cook announced a small yet politically significant shift. Apple, he said, would start making some Macs in the U.S.<\/a><\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Foxconn eventually moved on to other PC parts, which it produced in sprawling factories around Shenzhen, near component suppliers. By the time Cook joined Apple, these centralized factory hubs were far more efficient than anything in the U.S. Apple sold off<\/a> a huge Colorado plant in 1996, and after Cook arrived, he temporarily cut<\/a> its Ireland-based manufacturing workforce, closed<\/a> what was then its only remaining American production line, in Elk Grove, Calif., and outsourced more and more production to China, starting with laptops and webcams. (The Elk Grove facility is now used for refurbishing and repairs.)<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Jobs’s death<\/a> two years later caused skeptics to predict Apple would stagnate without a steady stream of his inventions; in fact, the real challenge was keeping supply up in China. Operations managers were scrambling to buy enough computer-controlled milling machines and laser cutters. Every millimeter was scrutinized for savings—as were even the seemingly least consequential parts. Three people familiar with the company’s supply chain say there was an Apple employee whose job consisted of negotiating the cost of glue.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Carr and Mark Gurman (tweet, via Josh Centers, MacRumors): Biden’s question put Cook, who’d become Apple’s CEO the previous August, in an awkward position. He was the architect of the strategy to outsource Apple’s production to China, a trend of increasing concern for the Obama administration. But Cook was also, as it turned out, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2021-02-09T21:44:21Z","apple_news_api_id":"fe15031f-cb2d-4660-ab23-ebc393224551","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2021-02-09T21:44:22Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A_hUDH8stRmCrI-vDkyJFUQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,101,1547,295,85,30,652,173,60],"class_list":["post-31616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-china","tag-history","tag-iphone","tag-mac","tag-mac-pro","tag-stevejobs","tag-timcook"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31617,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31616\/revisions\/31617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}