Apple More Reliant on Engineers in China
Shanghai, China - Image by Jeremy Zhu from Pixabay
10 MAY 2022 - COVID-19 has forced a number of changes on the modern world. Masks are a thing, both east and west. Personally, I’m more comfortable getting shots than I used to be. Also, Apple and other companies working in China have started to relax a bit of their control. That’s according to a piece from The Wall Street Journal (via Apple News+).
Apple used to fly about 50 engineers and execs from San Francisco to Shanghai every day, according to the Journal. Then COVID-19 hit and nobody went anywhere for a while. Now, as you’ve heard repeatedly here, China’s still really restrictive on travel in the time of COVID. It’s still hard to get into China, and folks who do get in face weeks of quarantine before they’re allowed to do what they went to do. The report says, many who thought it was still worth doing are starting to have second thoughts, now that various cities are going into and out of lockdown like somebody stuck in a revolving door.
Apple is said by the Journal to be tackling this in a couple of ways. First, employing a little thing they like to call “technology.” That’s said to run the gamut, from video feeds of assembly areas to keep eyes on factory floors, to the use of augmented reality - letting engineers on this side of the Pacific guide counterparts on the other side on the best way to insert tab-A into slot-B.
The second thing they’re said to be doing is listening to those counterparts. According to the Journal:
China-based engineers initially served as the eyes and the ears of their U.S.-based counterparts, people familiar with the practice said, but gradually they were given more authority to resolve problems themselves.
For instance, instead of sending product- and assembly-related information from China to Cupertino for a decision, engineers in China would also include their analysis. And China-based engineers who in the past generally would have reported problems to Cupertino would instead send proposals for resolving the problem, the people said.
Will you allow me a moment to editorialize? While The Wall Street Journal is a good source for business and financial news, it also serves as a mouthpiece for business and financial folk. While many things happen in the world at once, it’s interesting that as Apple faces blowback form employees in the U.S. over the Cupertino-company’s return-to-office plans, The Wall Street Journal runs a piece on how some of what Apple used to rely on workers in the U.S. for is now shifting to workers in China.
Funny.
