[SGVLUG] ot - How the US lost out on iPhone work

[Braddock Gaskill]

> From: matti <mathew_2000 at yahoo.com>
> manufacturing hub of?the world due to the scale of manpower, large?
> number of skilled ?mid-level engineers, the ability to quickly respond?
> to production?needs, construction of large factories, low labor costs,?

Having worked directly with an electronics manufacturer in Shenzhen both
in-country and remotely, they are amazingly responsive.  Their engineers
were able to optimize our bill of materials for cost and availability
almost at a glance.  They performed detailed checks of my PCB layout for
mass manufacturing quality concerns, and were able to solve some major part
supply issues with great ingenuity.  Their supply network was fantastic - I
don't even want to know how they quickly got parts at such low prices.  The
cheap labor they could throw at problems didn't hurt either - they added
manual soldering and testing stages as needed to combat quality issues
without a second thought.  All this attention for less than a half million
dollar run.

In the US you can throw gerbers and BOMs at a select few houses for fast
turnaround prototyping - at almost an order of magnitude greater cost.  But
we were never able to get a US or Canadian company down to anywhere near
competitive cost for mass production (we tried) and certainly they couldn't
afford to freely throw in the engineering talent, experience, and
improvisation we got from the Chinese. 

Your mileage may vary, but a good manufacturer is a joy to work with.

-braddock