One Reason Apple's Computers Are Mostly Made In China: A Tiny Screw
In a 2016 speech, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump used colorful language to urge Apple to build products in the U.S., rather than in China. In fact, the iPhone and Mac-maker had been doing that on a small scale, or trying to, since 2013, manufacturing the high-end Mac Pro in Austin.
Jack Nicas, who covers Silicon Valley for the New York Times, says making Macs in the U.S. was easier said than done.
“Apple contracted an Austin manufacturer called Plextronics to build that Mac Pro,” Nicas says. “And as they designed and built and tested that new computer on this Austin factory line, they would iterate the design and sometimes need new screws.”
Nicas says ordering new screws in the volume and turnaround time needed proved difficult. In China, creating new screws of this type is a straightforward task, Nicas says, but not in the U.S., where machine shops aren’t set up to produce them. With a capacity of 1,000 screws per day, the Lockhart, Texas machine shop Plextronics contracted with could not meet the needs of mass Mac Pro production.
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/one-reason-apples-computers-are-mostly-made-in-china-a-tiny-screw/
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