Foxconn’s new head of iPhone assembly, Michael Chiang, revealed that one of the ways to maintain Apple’s quality standard is to ensure a very robust production line. For the multi-brand company, while production lines for Chinese Android smartphones require about 100 workers, iPhones need at least 1,200 employees.
This is because, even if the company produces on a large scale, the evaluation of products can cause great damage and lead the factory to need to remake them. Therefore, good monitoring throughout the process is necessary.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic had a very big impact on Foxconn’s iPhone factories, which led to mass layoffs and, consequently, worker protests – which were violently silenced by Chinese security forces. There were also allegations that, taking advantage of the Covid Zero policy, the company was demanding that workers move to the factory and increase the workload.
Against this backdrop, Chiang was instrumental in calming labor unrest in Zhengzhou at the end of the year. He made the communication with the local government and secured the company’s demands. It is worth remembering that, after a confrontation between workers and the factory, production was affected and stocks of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max were impacted during year-end purchases.
Other Apple suppliers have also faced challenges due to the global economic crisis. In the case of Samsung Display, which manufactures iPhone screens for Apple, it even had production rates – the percentage of production that went through quality control – of just 60%. After that assessment, the South Korean scored an 80% and industry observers even described 90% as an impressive achievement.
(updated Jan 17, 2023 at 10:00 am)