Yesterday and today, Straits Times published a two part series on Manufacturing Woes in US. Steve Jobs, running the most successful technology company probably in the world was asked by President Obama "What would it take to make iPhones in United States?"
Steve Jobs responded "Those jobs are not coming back!" A quote from a former high rank Apple executive on Tim Cook, current CEO of Apple and an operations expert is the focus on Asia came down to two things...factories in Asia can scale up and down faster and Asian supply chains have supassed what's in the US.
The sub-story is Steve Jobs wanted a scratch-proof glass screen and he got one - super-fast! In less than 6 weeks. The glass screen arrived in the middle of the night and the managers woke up thousands of workers, put on their uniforms, get a couple of biscults and hot tea and the production just run. Within three months Apple sold a million iPhones.
Part 2 of the ariicle published today has the following headline "What an American engineer can't do" It is a compare and contrast. The engineer in US quoted "I wanted family time. We were told we would have to do 12-hours days and come in on Saturdays. I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer."
Meanwhile, a project manager in Shenzhen, China who work for contract manufacturer for Apple said "There are lots of jobs. Especially in Shenzhen!"
Looks like we are in the right part of the world at this moment in time. Of course, in Shenzhen will be better.
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