"For Chinese Android phones, we only have to assign 100 workers per production line, but we need 1,200 for the iPhone" -- Foxconn's Michael Chiang
From Debby Wu's "Foxconn Replaces iPhone Business Chief After Tumultuous Year" posted Monday by Bloomberg News:
Key Apple Inc. manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group has appointed a new boss for its iPhone assembly business after a tumultuous year in China, highlighting the company’s efforts to ready a new generation of leaders to help it navigate a post-Covid world.
Michael Chiang was first identified in his new role at Taiwan-based Foxconn’s annual year-end party on Sunday, succeeding longtime leader Wang Charng-yang as head of the division responsible for iPhone assembly. Chiang was recently promoted to chief of the A business group as Wang steps back to focus on a role on the board, according to people familiar with the matter.
Chiang is a longtime Foxconn manager who has helped the company meet the high standards Apple requires, according to one of the people, who asked not to be named discussing internal matters. Wang, who was appointed to Hon Hai’s board in the summer of 2022, remains a director and his departure from the iPhone operations role isn’t connected to the Covid-related output disruptions Foxconn suffered last year, the people said.
Chiang has a master’s degree in human resources development from California’s Claremont Graduate University and he joined Foxconn in 1999, according to a wide-ranging interview he did with an insurance broker company that was posted online in June 2021.
When Foxconn encountered unprecedented worker unrest at its main iPhone campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou late last year, Chiang played a pivotal role in communicating with the local government and making sure Apple’s demands would be satisfied, one of the people said...
“For Chinese Android phones, we only have to assign 100 workers per production line, but we need 1,200 for the iPhone,” Chiang said, underlining Apple’s exacting demands.
My take: Sounds like Chiang was already doing the job.
Maybe?
Oh, I get it. Nice sarcasm there!
On further reflection, you are probably right. Hard to say what number is related build quality and what is related to other reasons. But it also says that Apple is very important to Foxconn and they will try to keep Apple happy, no matter what the reason for the increased numbers.
For a low end phone, maybe there are suppliers (like Qualcomm ) that would integrate almost the whole phone (LTE, BT, WiFi, GPS? ) into just a few modules making assembly much easier. Not the best performance but easy to assemble.