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50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

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Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#101

Post by nerdbert »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #35
blobbers wrote: post #25

Anyone who's read outsourced code can vouch for the similar QC problems. I work with a lot of great Indian software developers; none of them worked IN India itself; they tend to be the ones that are skilled enough to quickly realize they're able to command massively higher wages by leaving India. India, despite it's reputation as a software outsourcing location has never been able to produce exportable quality beside…

I suspect that most people who have interacted with remote teams based in India, have had the same experiences. I'm honestly surprised that Apple didn't choose Vietnam or Indonesia over India.

I'm sure there are political considerations.

India of late has a capricious regulation problem which makes it difficult for tech firms to have predictability.

And everyone already knows you can get decent quality manufacturing done in Vietnam. India would like to be considered in that same group.

Therefore it's in Apple's interest to present India with the opportunity to demonstrate that capability, while giving Apple a measure of leverage in cases where India's government is considering outlawing encryption or unmoderated forums or the shift key or whatever they think will make people stop complaining about them today.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#102

Post by crote »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #53
kalesh wrote: post #21

I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did a small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino company’s expectations` - this is so true. In India, most manufacturing companies or businesses are trying to sell what they have or can produce (without any attention to detail…

> I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did a small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino company’s expectations` - this is so true. This varies massively from one CM to the next. If you can get your foot in the door at the higher tier CMs, the professionalism and…

I've got the same experience.

Chinese manufacturers can do absolutely amazing work - provided you can get them to care. In general they'll manufacture exactly what you ask them to. They are also very happy to do manual labour to get the job done.

But for most stuff, don't expect too much feedback. Asking for feedback on a design to optimize it for production didn't really produce anything useful, and they manufactured designs which contained obvious mistakes.

In general, you simply get what you pay for!

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#103

Post by voytec »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #38
blobbers wrote: post #25

Anyone who's read outsourced code can vouch for the similar QC problems. I work with a lot of great Indian software developers; none of them worked IN India itself; they tend to be the ones that are skilled enough to quickly realize they're able to command massively higher wages by leaving India. India, despite it's reputation as a software outsourcing location has never been able to produce exportable quality beside…

> There are no cars or electronics, or chip fabs in this country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors

They appear to be the ones with 50% failure rate

> At an iPhone casings factory in Hosur run by Indian conglomerate Tata, one of Apple’s suppliers, just about one out of every two components coming off the production line is in good enough shape to eventually be sent to Foxconn, Apple’s assembly partner for building iPhones, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#104

Post by Barrin92 »

As the saying goes, Americas worst ideas are always bipartisan. The whole decoupling from China hysteria is going to cause significant harm to consumers and people vastly underestimate how complex manufacturing at the scale, quality, and price is that China built out over the years. There's an incredible amount of tacit knowledge in industrial processes that cannot easily be replicated, it takes a long time to develop.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#105

Post by nerdbert »

kamakazizuru wrote: post #85

This is an article that paraphrases another article from the Financial Times ( https://archive.is/iuXAm ) both of which lack any real sources or facts from Apple themselves. The only people quoted are a random Bain consultant and Vivek Wadhwa who basically shows up with an opinion whenever anyone says "India" - regardless of whether he actually understands the industry or not. None of this is to say that the problems…

> bear in mind that China literally started producing electronics in the 80s, a 40 year headstart

Pretty sure Indian electronic manufacturing didn't start with this Apple project.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#106

Post by MPlus88 »

Indians software programmers are just as shoddy. The only difference is that it is much harder to see software quality than hardware quality. In hardware you can easily spot the quality by looking at the fit and finish and whether things fit together nicely. In software it's just code and the quality only manifest itself in buggy and hard to maintain software, which can be years later.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#107

Post by szundi »

kalesh wrote: post #37
satvikpendem wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, China also used to be like that, sending out cheap samples that didn't meet the specification, and the manufacturers there would tell you that they'd do it correctly next time, just for the same thing to happen again. But eventually they were able to do a good job. Give it time, Indian manufacturing is simply not as advanced as China's right now but it will be if enough investment is made.

It's not about being advanced. It's about keeping promises & being honest. It might take a whole generation to fix this.

Parent commenter is right, China was like that. The difference is in the root cause: attitude. Whole world is full of ridiculously hard working Chinese people rising up from being an immigrants with nothing and running like the half economies of countries after 50 years.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#108

Post by kamakazizuru »

nerdbert wrote: post #105
kamakazizuru wrote: post #85

This is an article that paraphrases another article from the Financial Times ( https://archive.is/iuXAm ) both of which lack any real sources or facts from Apple themselves. The only people quoted are a random Bain consultant and Vivek Wadhwa who basically shows up with an opinion whenever anyone says "India" - regardless of whether he actually understands the industry or not. None of this is to say that the problems…

> bear in mind that China literally started producing electronics in the 80s, a 40 year headstart Pretty sure Indian electronic manufacturing didn't start with this Apple project.

at this scale and complexity it's definitely one of the earlier projects. Apple does almost nothing "off the shelf" - tools, processes and often even materials are engineered to their specific needs. That's different from the more lego like manufacturing that most electronics require.

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#109

Post by kamakazizuru »

nerdbert wrote: post #101
manuelabeledo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that most people who have interacted with remote teams based in India, have had the same experiences. I'm honestly surprised that Apple didn't choose Vietnam or Indonesia over India.

I'm sure there are political considerations. India of late has a capricious regulation problem which makes it difficult for tech firms to have predictability. And everyone already knows you can get decent quality manufacturing done in Vietnam. India would like to be considered in that same group. Therefore it's in Apple's interest to present India with the opportunity to demonstrate that capability, while giving Appl…

Does everyone also know about the outsize influence China has on Vietnam? If the goal is to de-risk a China / US Trade War scenario and prevent Chinese government from stealing chip tech etc - then you dont get much by going to their pals next door ;)

Re: 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge

#110

Post by andrewmcwatters »

valdiorn wrote: post #52
User23 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

That's two orders of magnitude!
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