DailyPost 2904
DEEP TOOLING EXPERTISE – NO ONE’S COOKING UP!
The more we spread misconceptions about China; its tech prowess end to end, the more it gets unstuck over a period of time. Cheap labour, low quality products, and capital moving out of China for a variety of reasons seems to be a staple media / public domain narrative. Who has the first hand knowledge and who all have verified it? Is it the job of the spin doctors, who can create anything; fiction to fact, given the current deep immersion in media, 25/7/365, social media is becoming mainstream. A multimedia cacophony can drive anyone mad. Can we say one is forced to believe.
Then an opinion and you may safely call it a fact, comes from a company which has been invested in China’s manufacturing since 2001, and puts forth a totally contrary narrative. You are forced to sit up and think. Thought provoking is an understatement. Apple started manufacturing its products in China in 2001. 90% of the iPhones are being produced in China. iPhone apart, China also produces other Apple products like iPads and MacBooks. The man who brought this experience based narrative to the public domain is none other than Apple CEO Tim Cook. For sure nothing is cooking up. It is plain speak at its best.
In a throwback interview which has gone viral he busted common misconceptions behind tech giants’ decision to manufacture in China and gave candid reasons for it. Contrary to the cheap labour cost theory, he said China stopped low labour costs many years ago. What then is the reason? He says that the huge concentration of skilled labour is the primary reason. He elaborated that advanced tooling and precision is required to produce Apple products. The plain speak from his side is that China’s vocational expertise in these areas is unmatched globally.
Cook went on to explain, “the reason is because of the skill, the quality of skill in one location and the type of skill it is”. He talks of this at near hypnotic levels. “The tooling is very deep here,” he says. In the US a meeting of tooling engineers could barely fill a hall, in China, you could fill multiple fields. The argument is laid to rest by saying that this extensive pool of skilled workers are essential for the intricate manufacturing processes that Apple products demand. The Tesla CEO also gave a “true” certificate to this narrative. Does India take a cue out of this narrative, if we start now, we might start seeing a change a couple of years from now, in our skill development effort.
THE WORLD IS IN SEARCH OF HIGH-END SKILLING EXPERTISE AT SCALE, WILL BE WE ABLE TO PROVIDE IT IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening