Apple has been investing a lot recently to increase its production capacity in India, although the company still faces many challenges in the country. However, a massive fire at Foxlink’s facilities in India has forced the company, which is one of Apple’s main suppliers, to halt its operations in the country indefinitely.
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In a new report by Bloomberg today, Apple and Samsung suppliers are making thousand of Vietnamese workers sleep on factory floors to minimize disruption of COVID-19 resurgence in the country as well as keep industry rolling.
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A screengrab from the documentary showing workers sleeping on the production-line
The full BBC documentary on working conditions in iPhone factories has been unofficially uploaded to YouTube. It probably won’t be too long before it gets pulled, so if you want to see it, watch it while you can – we’ve embedded the full video below …
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In a letter to UK staff, Tim Cook is said to have been “deeply offended” by allegations made in a BBC undercover documentary that Apple had broken promises over the working conditions in Pegatron’s iPhone factories in China, reports the Telegraph.
In an email to around 5,000 staff across the UK, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said both himself and the chief executive were “deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way”.
“Panorama’s report implied that Apple isn’t improving working conditions,” he continued. “Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth.”
Williams said that Apple had provided both “facts and perspective” on the allegations, but the BBC had chosen not to include these in the program …
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Component orders by Apple for the iPhone 6 are a significant factor in the current thriving state of a number of Asian economies, say analysts and government officials cited by the WSJ.
Analysts expect companies from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea that supplied earlier versions of the iPhone to produce key components like displays, camera lenses and microprocessors. Already, some of those companies are announcing increased earnings or forecasts, and economists and analysts are talking about an Apple effect on whole sectors and economies …
Apple’s eighth annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report highlights the progress made on reducing child labor and enforcing working hour limits, and shows a significant increase in the environmental standards Apple’s suppliers are expected to meet.
The number of cases of underage workers fell from 106 last year to 11 this year. Compliance with Apple’s requirement of a maximum working week of 60 hours hit 95 percent, with 97 percent meeting the requirement of at least one day off a week. Apple reported that the average working week of a supply chain employee was less than 50 hours …
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In light of Apple’s launch of two new iPhones, Bloomberg has taken an extensive look at the behind-the-scenes process of Apple’s shipments of new products from the Asia-based supply chain to sales channels such as Apple Stores.
The process starts in China, where pallets of iPhones are moved from factories in unmarked containers accompanied by a security detail. The containers are then loaded onto trucks and shipped via pre-bought airfreight space, including on old Russian military transports. The journey ends in stores where the world’s biggest technology company makes constant adjustments based on demand, said people who have worked on Apple’s logistics and asked not to be identified because the process is secret.
The process, designed by Apple CEO Tim Cook, is led by Senior VP of Operations Jeff Williams and Michael Seifert, another operations executive at Apple.
Some interesting tidbits include the process of security guards consistently following the new devices from shipment to delivery. When a product actually launches, the supply management process is said to continue as Apple studies the progress of the launch.