Apple CEO Tim Cook On Apple's US Manufacturing Move

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Apple CEO Tim Cook On Apple's US Manufacturing Move

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 6, 2012 @04:28AM from the tim-who?-oh-yeah dept.

We mentioned a few days back the "Assembled in America" tag showing up on some models of Apple's iMac. Nerval's Lobster points out that in a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered some details on what that means: "'Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac,' Cook told the magazine. 'We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We're really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it's broader because we wanted to do something more substantial.' He also had comments about Android and current litigation against Samsung and others."

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Smart PR move by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-06 04:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

It may reduce their margins (minutely), but it will give them an immediate response to any allegations of massive offshoring of labor or anti-American sentiment. It's a relatively small investment for them that could pay tremendous returns. Smart, Apple, very smart.
1. Re:Smart PR move by Dupple · 2012-12-06 04:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It'll be a Foxconn plant though, not an Apple one.
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-06/foxconn-plans-american-expansion-as-clients-seek-made-in-u-s-a-.html
  
  --
  Watch those corners
Re: PR Move by hawks5999 · 2012-12-06 04:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

If this is a PR move, it's costly. As the news of the Made in the US concept spread, AAPL lost $30 billion in market capitalization.
This needs to be a principled move because shareholders are going to complain greatly about any margin erosion for the sake of patriotism.
Re:PR gimmic, if your cynical by Kohlrabi82 · 2012-12-06 04:44 · Score: 5, Funny

If they bring [...] jobs back
I knew that Apple was an evil company, but I didn't know they dabbled in necromancy.
China not as cheap by bhlowe · 2012-12-06 04:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

Manufacturing in China is getting more expensive and North America is becoming more competitive. The tax rate on repatriating money made outside of the US also makes manufacturing in the US more advantageous.
What would you have preferred to see? by Brannon · 2012-12-06 04:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

Here are your options:
1. Manufacturing in the USA, with manufacturing using robots, creating low thousands of well-paid jobs for Americans.
2. Manufacturing in China using hundreds of thousands of low-paid Chinese jobs.
3. Manufacturing in the USA without robots, but with hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage part-time jobs--and all Apple products increase in price by 30%.
Apple is currently doing #2 and transitioning to #1. Are you really upset that they didn't pick #3?
1. Re:What would you have preferred to see? by Dcnjoe60 · 2012-12-06 05:18 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Here are your options:
  1. Manufacturing in the USA, with manufacturing using robots, creating low thousands of well-paid jobs for Americans.
  2. Manufacturing in China using hundreds of thousands of low-paid Chinese jobs.
  3. Manufacturing in the USA without robots, but with hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage part-time jobs--and all Apple products increase in price by 30%.
  Apple is currently doing #2 and transitioning to #1. Are you really upset that they didn't pick #3?
  Your choices all have the same outcome. It is not the number of american jobs that is important to the economy, it is the number of american jobs that provide a livable wage.
  In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?
  Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.
2. Re:What would you have preferred to see? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-06 05:26 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  > Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma,
  You will need at least some jobs like that. Not everyone is capable of (or wants) higher education, some people just missed the boat, others like immigrants will take the opportunity to improve their children's station.
  Not everyone without an advanced degree can work in fast food joints, so #1 still gives you a boost to entry-level US jobs as well as a spectrum of jobs up the pay scale including design. manufacturing, engineering, maintenance and so on.
3. Re:What would you have preferred to see? by tlhIngan · 2012-12-06 05:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Your choices all have the same outcome. It is not the number of american jobs that is important to the economy, it is the number of american jobs that provide a livable wage.
  In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?
  Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.
  Well, manufacturing is an unskilled job for the most part. In fact, factory jobs tend to be some of the worst around because they're utterly dull, boring and uninspiring work putting tab A into slot B and doing so in 750 milliseconds or less.
  Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.
  Robotic factories require far more skilled labor - you have to have technicians who can repair the robots, highly paid engineers who have to figure out how to make the product manufacturable by robots, supervisors to handle robot emegencies (and to manage human-robot interactions), engineers or techs to program the robots, etc. These require specialized training and as such, are much higher paying jobs. But of course there are far less of them - a robot tech can service multiple robots each work shift, likewise a manufacturing engineer designs the whole thing out before production begins, etc.
  It's why the average American is far more productive than their Chinese counterpart - you cannot simply move manufacturing from China to the US without redesigning your product around that fact. Because all that happens is you're replacing low-skill jobs in China with low-skill jobs in the US (most of which would actually be fulfilled by illegal immigrants and such - just like in other low skill jobs).
  Apple probably will pay just over minimum wage, because really, that's all the job demands. Unless you think putting stuff in boxes demands more pay than flipping burgers, cleaning toilets or other stuff.
  And knowing Apple, if you're making tons of the stuff, they probably won't have a human hand touching it - just robots all the way into sealing the box. The only humans in the actual line are probably there to keep it going - receiving parts into inventory and stocking the part carriers for the robots, and shipping out the finished pallets of product.
4. Re:What would you have preferred to see? by Dcnjoe60 · 2012-12-06 06:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.
  There was a time, not too long ago, that anybody who graduated high school had all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job, even start and run their own business, like Microsoft.
  Back in the day, most business leaders, even , weren't college educated, but instead rose through the ranks to get to their position (with the exception of maybe medicine and engineering). Today, you spend $100,000 to get a degree so you can work in an entry level position. A generation or two ago, you just graduated high school for the entry level position and somebody with a college degree want into a junior management or mid-level position.
  Face. it, most work fits in the category of being unskilled and monotonous. We just don't like to think about it wheny it applies to our own field.
5. Re:What would you have preferred to see? by AmiMoJo · 2012-12-06 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Right, but the problem is that the minimum wage is too low because people can't live reasonably on it. That leads them to do two jobs with no time left to look after the kids, or to be dependent on benefits/tax credits to survive, and to have little disposable income to drive consumer spending.
  There will always be unskilled jobs and people without marketable skills to fill them, but we need those jobs to offer a viable life to the employee or society breaks.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is good news! Good for Apple. by sdsucks · 2012-12-06 05:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

1) So what if it's a PR move? It's still a good move for Americans - no matter what.
2) So what if it's a Foxconn factory? Of course it will be one - Apple is NOT a manufacturing company, but they do work *very* closely with their manufacturers.
3) So what if it's a mostly robotic factory? This IS the future of manufacturing in all countries - accept it, and accept that even robotic factories are better than none for the local economy.
Seriously, how are so many of you trying to spin this negatively? And why?
Re:May be related? by master5o1 · 2012-12-06 05:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

But are the robots made by robots made in the USA?

--
signature is pants
Not just PR by mschaffer · 2012-12-06 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's a move to help keep their products from being restricted from import if/when they ever lose an IP lawsuit.
Apple is doing this by SuperKendall · 2012-12-06 05:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

Apple could demand better adherence to US standards in the Foxconn plants making their products.
Apple is doing this, they already demanded less overtime of workers and better enforcement of restrictions against child labor. And then they brought in an independent firm to audit this happening and asked FoxConn to allow them access.
The real question is, why is NO other company doing this.
Things are obviously not perfect at FoxConn but Apple is trying to make them better, in a way that anyone can keep track of. No other company is providing any kind of visibility into these issues.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:What dividend promise? by perpenso · 2012-12-06 05:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes because they are so short of cash they need to conserve it right?
Promising such a dividend, such a dividend being a reasonable thing to do, and speculators expecting such a dividend by year end to avoid a tax increase are entirely different things.

Besides, such a cash horde helped them get through a bad *decade* in the past. If they were not so fiscally conservative they might not be here now. Plus they are in the position of being able to make massive strategic purchases or investments without going into debt. That puts them in a pretty strong position with respect to whatever comes "next". The engineer in me likes to see such flexibility and options rather than managing according to wall street expectations and norms.
Re:Assembled in America means... by sdsucks · 2012-12-06 06:07 · Score: 3, Informative

This lie again? Why are you misleading people?
An “Assembled in USA” claim requires a product’s “last substantial transformation” happen in the United States even if the components of a product are manufactured overseas. However, this requires more than a “screwdriver” assembly of the parts at the end of the process. For Apple to be putting “Assembled in USA” labels on some new iMacs, the company is claiming that it’s doing more than slapping together components into a finished whole.
- http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/does-assembled-in-usa-mean-anything-for-apple/
Re:Drop was margin, not Made In USA by Algae_94 · 2012-12-06 08:38 · Score: 3, Informative

It was a fraudulent trade. He intentionally bought 1000x what he should have bought, and through some fast talking got another firm to short sell a comparable amount. I don't think the guy got beyond step 2 ???. He basically set up one firm to make a lot of money and the other to lose a lot, don't know how he expected to get any of it. Source