When Steve Jobs decided in 2007 that iPhone would have glass screens, it was then that the battle was lost for the American, Coming Inc. They simply could not manage to manufacture the glass screens economically and no other company in America had done this before since no other mobile phone maker wanted a glass screen. They said it was difficult to cut and the basic expenses like the men, machines and land would make this screen making operation a bad deal for the company.
When this was happening, a Chinese company bid for the manufacturing of these glass screens. Now when the Apple team visited China, this company had already started to construct the factory for Apple and one of their employees stated confidently, “This is in case you give us the contract”, according to our source.
Mr. Cook also said that when it came down to Asia, it had two advantages to it. First, Asian manufacturing units could scale up and down faster. Second, Asian supply chain infrastructure had surpassed what existed in the U.S. Apart from this, the Chinese government also helped with some subsidies which made it easier for them to go ahead with.
The Chinese company also gave Apple a glass ware house filled with sample and an array of engineers available 24 hours since they lived on site. Another former Apple employee talks about the event, “The entire supply chain is in China now. You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”
Foxconn City is complex eight hours away from this factory where the iPhone is assembled. This place confirmed the decision of the Apple employees since they knew that American companies will not be able to provide an offer like this. And Foxconn Technologies has facilities like this in many countries of Asia and Eastern Europe and Mexico and Brazil. Here, they assemble products of Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.
It’s because of the scale of operations at Foxconn and the irreplicability of it. This place has over 230,000 employees, many working 6 days a week and many a times even 12 hours a day. More than one fourth of this work force lives in the barracks of the complex provided by the company and earned less than $17 a day. There are as many as 300 guards just for directing people through the gates and avoid bottlenecks. The amount of food cooked in the central kitchen of the factory -3 tons of pork and 13 tons of rice per day- is mind boggling. Though the factories are spotless but the teahouses and the rest areas are filled with cigarette smoke.