China has the ability to scale up faster than the U.S.
China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
4 comments
Jan 23, 2012
brian casey said...
what about quality, creativity and innovation? we will never compete with China's population numbers. Who invented the iphone? american or chinese engineers?
Jan 23, 2012
Scott McLeod said...
Agreed, but read the original article...
Jan 23, 2012
Frank Gulla said...
I am not sure the 8700 Industrial engineers in 15 days is the relevant issue. I think the 8000 "workers" midnight wake-up to meet some foreign demands is the telling point. Seriously, this "gulag" labor is what we should be paying attention to and people should be hounding Apple able.
Jan 24, 2012
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