There will always be PC manufacturing in the United States for a very simple reason. Both the American and Israeli governments demand it.
I used to work at Gateway’s flagship PC manufacturing plant as a manufacturing financial analyst. So I became acquainted with a small operation that was a “plant within a plant”. This group did nothing but assemble computers for the American military and the Israeli government.
Security was ultra-tight and all information regarding it’s operations was on a need-to-know basis. In fact, after I first wrote about this in January of 2017, I half-expected to have men in black suits in unmarked black SUVs show up at my house demanding that I take down my post.
So earlier this year when Donald Trump took credit for Apple deciding to keep some of it’s Mac Pro manufacturing in Austin, Texas. It rang true to me. However, I think there was more to the story than President Trump was at liberty to discuss.
It would make financial sense for Apple to manufacture all of the Mac Pros outside of the United States. There is economy of scale achieved in consolidating the operations of a low volume product. Plus, there are logistics savings in manufacturing close to your component parts base.
It’s my theory that the part of the story not discussed by the news outlets is that the American government placed a very large order of Mac Pros destined to go to the military, CIA, or some other clandestine organization. As a rule, these are never assembled in a foreign country.
Or it could be that there are more than Mac Pros assembled in that Austin plant. It’s highly possible that Apple agreed to assemble some other items in low volume for the US or Israel and agreed never to reveal that information.
The thing that Apple or any other PC manufacturer needs to devote resources to American manufacturing is a signed commitment and a good price. A low volume operation in the United States is a costly affair and would require much higher prices to make a profit. It looks to me like negotiations were at an impasse and perhaps Donald Trump stepped in and made the deal happen.
Security was ultra-tight and all information regarding it’s operations was on a need-to-know basis. In fact, after I first wrote about this in January of 2017, I half-expected to have men in black suits in unmarked black SUVs show up at my house demanding that I take down my post.
So earlier this year when Donald Trump took credit for Apple deciding to keep some of it’s Mac Pro manufacturing in Austin, Texas. It rang true to me. However, I think there was more to the story than President Trump was at liberty to discuss.
It would make financial sense for Apple to manufacture all of the Mac Pros outside of the United States. There is economy of scale achieved in consolidating the operations of a low volume product. Plus, there are logistics savings in manufacturing close to your component parts base.
It’s my theory that the part of the story not discussed by the news outlets is that the American government placed a very large order of Mac Pros destined to go to the military, CIA, or some other clandestine organization. As a rule, these are never assembled in a foreign country.
Or it could be that there are more than Mac Pros assembled in that Austin plant. It’s highly possible that Apple agreed to assemble some other items in low volume for the US or Israel and agreed never to reveal that information.
The thing that Apple or any other PC manufacturer needs to devote resources to American manufacturing is a signed commitment and a good price. A low volume operation in the United States is a costly affair and would require much higher prices to make a profit. It looks to me like negotiations were at an impasse and perhaps Donald Trump stepped in and made the deal happen.
RSS Feed