The biggest supplier for Apple parts Foxconn Electronics reveals its plan to build manufacture in the shore of United states. According to the source, Foxconn is looking for a good location in Detroit and Los Angeles. The manufacture will produce LCD for TV and nothing to do with Apple. As stated by Terry Gou the Foxconn chairman said that the company is working with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create a program for engineering subject. It will bring its people to attend the courses and get them back to Taiwan and China for product design. This is the long term strategy of the company to enter the U.S. market as well as building better human resource.
Secretly Apple has managed to come up with a new design of iPhone 5 but mostly similar to the previous 4S or 4. The iPhone 5 is thinner and taller. Do you know that even with these small changes it requires more skill to assemble?
An unknown Foxconn excutive said, “The iPhone 5 is the most difficult device that has ever assembled. To make it light and thin, the design is very complicated. It takes time to learn how to make this new device. Practice makes perfect. Our productivity has been improving day by day.”
Even more serious the source even reported that some iPhone 5 in the first production line come with scratches. The use of new materials makes it easier to be scratches even from the factory. However Apple claimed that with new Quality Check, the new iPhone 5 in later production line are way perfect.
We can conclude that new iPhone 5 made the company more difficult in term of both assemble and material quality.
As part of production quality improvement, Foxconn has implemented x-ray inspection strategy to improve the inspection section. With this help of x-ray machine, it will reduce the inspection time as well as cut labor costs. Foxconn is a close partner to Apple in term of production of both iPhone and iPad so this new machine should be very helpful to the company.
If the company can manage to use this machine effectively, we will be able to see more iPhone or iPad in the market in the coming year. However we should notice that the company also has spent huge amounts to purchase the machine.
The side effect of using this machine should result in labor force cut. It is in precarious stage for every employees in side both Foxconn and Apple.
Thank to the success of Amazon 7 Inch Kindle Fire, the company is looking forward for more tablets with larger display. According to Digitimes, Amazon 8.9-inch Kindle Fire is scheduled to be released by the end of Q2 2012. However you should remember that its previous 7-inch tablet was so success thank to the lower price compared to its competitors. In addition the long-waiting 10.1-inch Kindle Fire is in the work already.
This may be the next revolution in China. To reduce production costs, the giant Foxconn, which manufactures consumer electronic products for major brands like HP, Dell or Apple, has announced the replacement of more than one million workers by robots in the next three years. The company currently uses 10 000 robots, that figure should rise to 300,000 before reaching the one million units by 2014.
The company currently has 1.2 million employees. The founder of Foxconn did not say by how much the machines would replace the workers. So far, the workers still cost cheaper than robots, but current technology could lead to the replacement of workers by machines at a lower cost.
This news is quite positive for the workers currently working in difficult conditions. They will be gradually replaced by machines and an army of technicians engaged in maintenance robots.
The Shenzhen court has sentenced two employees of Foxconn and the director of the company that manufactures MacTop Electronics Co. to the prison and tens of thousands of euros in fines for iPad 2 leak before launch.
On 20 May at 19h local time, an impressive explosion took place in the campus of Chengdu, a factory of the manufacturer Foxconn. This tragedy has left two people dead and 16 wounded among the workers. The blast partially destroyed one of two sites dedicated to the production of iPad 2. Firefighters managed to extinguish the fire and an investigation is underway to determine the causes of the tragedy. (more…)
According to Reuters , the Chinese giant Foxconn, the leading manufacturer of Apple products, but also other brands like HP and Dell, would start production iPad 2 in Brazil as early as July. Initially the production was not to begin before next November, but demand iPad in the Brazilian market has forced Foxconn to accelerate negotiations with the Brazilian government.
