In collaboration with the University of Sunderland

Department of Engineering and Technology

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (HONS) ELECTRONIC &

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 2 of 2

COURSE: INDUSTRIAL STUDIES

COURSE CODE: EAT221
Instructions to Candidates:
A hard copy formal report should be submitted on or before
nd
pending 2014. Your work should be submitted to the 2 floor
staff room and the latest time for submission is 4pm.

You will receive no marks for the work that is not your own.
Your work may be subject to checks for originality. You are to
conduct an oral presentation about your work.

Student should produce a formal referenced report with a word

count of approximately 5500-6000 words, excluding a title page
and page containing your references. Use a top left corner staple
to fix them together. Do NOT use a plastic folder to present
your work.

Case Problem: Apples Troubled Outsourced Manufacturing Plant

In one of the more amazing industrial migrations in history, the world's tech companies have
gone from building their own products in places like California and France to having over
90% of them built in poorer locales, such as China, Mexico and Romaniaall in the past
decade or so. That's billions of dollars of contracts flowing into regions with very different
customs, laws, and pay scales.

As workers in the U.S. and elsewhere commanded ever higher wages, manufacturers shifted
operations elsewhere, including such places as Mexico and Japan, and later Taiwan and China.
Many companies, Apple Inc., among them, get outside companies to handle the
manufacturing entirely, often in places where labor costs are low and workplace regulations
differ from those in the U.S. and Europe. It's created hundreds of thousands of jobs at
thousands of companies that operate at the extremes of the industrial food chain, often in
anonymitywhether at tiny shops that make a certain kind of connector, or at Foxconn
Electronics' impossibly huge Long Hua campus, which employs 200,000 people.

In 2011, Apple Inc., released its annual supplier responsibility report in which it had to
acknowledge not only that one of its outsourced factories employed 42 minors, but also
suicides at a Foxconn plant and serious toxins exposures at a Wintek touchscreen facility.
Although Apple Inc., is known for tightly supervising contractors, things keep going wrong.
If Apple Inc., cannot obtain the manufacturing standards and conditions it needs from
suppliers and outsourced manufacturers, what company can?

Last year has been an anomaly (deviation from standard practice) for Apple's China-based
manufacturing. The report found frequent violations of the more basic tenets of its supplier
code. To the company's credit -- a continued surprise, given its legendary secrecy -- this year,
again, Apple Inc., aired suppliers' dirty laundry. Apple Inc., brings in third party auditors to
check what its suppliers do, is not afraid to cut a company loose, and still has to continuously
follow up to get the manufacturing improvements that it wants.

The following are the frequent types of violations of its supplier code that Apple Inc., found.
a) exceeding maximum work weeks of 60 hours and minimum time off of one day for
every seven days worked.
b) underpayment of wages, benefit levels below those required by local laws, and wage
deductions for disciplinary purposes.
c) discrimination based on medical tests.
d) lack or missing implementation of occupational safety standards.
e) lack of ergonomic risk assessment.
f) inadequate environmental permitting and reporting.
g) lack of management commitment to compliance.

In 2006, The British newspaper The Mail reported Apple Computer's (AAPL) iPod portable
media players are made in sweatshop conditions. The plant specified in the report is said to
employ some 200,000 people who live in dormitories crammed with up to 100 people at a
time, for wages that appear to Western eyes shockingly low, about $50 a month. If
manufacturers regularly flout prohibitions on hiring under age workers, cheating employees
out of earning wages, and falsifying business records, including financial information, what
other directives do they ignore? Apple has faced numerous faults with its products in the last
few years and such issues speak to problems in manufacturing.
a)
b)
c)
d)

iPhone 3G cases cracking.

white iPhone 4 cases face one delay after another.
vertical lines on iMac displays.
discolored spots on the iPhone 4 retinal display.

Perhaps closer management, more rigorous testing, and better integration between
engineering and production could have helped. But that is tough to achieve when factories are
thousands of miles away and owned by someone else. Overall compliance is still poor in
some important areas such as working hours (46 %), wages and benefits (65 %), occupational
injury prevention (61 %), air emissions (74 %) and hazardous substance management (70 %).
According to Apple, 40 % of the vendors and subcontractors it inspected said that it was the
first time any client company had done so. Executives literally don't want to know what
happens unless there is a mistake. Experts say companies should not outsource simply to save
money as there is significant cost involved in adequate supervision and management. There is
great risk of long-term jump in oil prices, hence the effect of increasing cost of transporting
products from Asia to other parts of the world, now seeing new downsides in outsourced
manufacturing.
Sources: Adapted from Erik Sherman, Apples Troubled Outsourced Manufacturing
Plants., CBS Moneywatch, [February 15, 2011], http://www.cbsnews.com/news/applestroubled-outsourced-manufacturing-plants/; Arik Hesseldahl, Fixing Apples Sweatshop
Woes.,
Bloomberg
Business
Week,
Technology,
[June
28,
2014],
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-06-28/fixing-apples-sweatshop-woes;
Erik
Sherman, Apples Asian Labor Report Card: Problems Continue., CBS Moneywatch,
[March 1, 2010], http://www.cbsnews.com/news/apples-asian-labor-report-card-problemscontinue-and-are-hard-to-solve/; Peter Burrows, High Techs Sweatshop Wakeup Call.,
Bloomberg
Business
Week,
Technology,
[June
14,
2006],
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-06-14/high-techs-sweatshop-wake-up-call; Peter
Burrows, Stalking High Techs Sweatshops, Business Week, International Labor Rights
Forum, [June 19, 2006], http://www.laborrights.org/in-the-news/stalking-high-techsweatshops.

QUESTIONS
Outsourcing Perspective (contribution around 1600 words count)
1.

Carefully examine and explain three (3) strengths and three (3) weaknesses of business
production each for local and outsource approaches.
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. Strength & weakness (i.e. qualitative and quantitative benefit).

2.

Critically discuss the outsources supply chain of management (4 stages) and the
measuring of supply chain performance (4 measures).
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. Supply chain of management to end user (i.e. the planning, forecasting, inventory,
distribution, transportation).
b. Measuring of supply chain management (i.e. KPI, Process Control).

Manufacturing / Operation Perspective (contribution around 1600 words count)

1.

Construct a manufacturing process of the computer production (at least 4 stages). Briefly
explain the stages involved.
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. At least 4 stages of manufacturing processes (i.e. fabrication, assembly).

2.

Apple Inc., had faced major defects in its product as stated, carefully analyse the cause
and effect. Discuss and justify the actions that you would proposed to improve or
minimise outsourced troubled. Define obstacle that may hinder your proposal.
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. 5 causes with Ishikawa diagram (i.e. work long hours).
b.

5 proposals to improve/minimise troubled (i.e. stricter supervision).

c.

5 hindering obstacles (i.e. culture).

Cost Perspective (contribution around 1600 words count)

1.

Discuss lean production cost reduction and the supply chain management cost
reduction and three (3) other alternative of cost reduction in outsourced manufacturing.
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. 5 cost reductions (i.e. lean production cost reduction)

2.

Critically identify the eight (8) hidden costs associated with outsourcing.
Marking Scheme:
May vary with students (valid reasoning must be quoted from reliable sources).
a. 8 hidden costs (i.e. cost of management & coordination of contractor)

You should conduct research into this topic by using the internet, academic journals, and
textbooks available at the University and online library of the University of Sunderland.

You must provide at least 10 references. All data sources used and cited in the report should
be correctly referenced utilising Harvard Referencing System.

References from commercial and other web pages are to be used very sparingly. Excessive
used of non-academic web pages will be reflected in a reduction of the references mark.

Format of pages
Paper and margins
1. White A4 paper is appropriate, and printing on two sides is preferred.
2. Allowing margin of 2.5 cm on all sides.

Page numbering
1. Title page should not be numbered.
2. Arabic numerals starting from 2 should be used to number the page from the Abstract
page to the last page of your report.
3. The page should be numbered in the right-hand lower corner.

Format of text
Justification
1. All headings should be aligned against the left margin.
2. Full justification (right and left margins) should be used in your report.

Line spacing
1. Single spacing should be used throughout your report.
2. No line spacing between the headings and texts.
3. Single line spacing should be used in the following cases:
to separate paragraphs.
to separate figures, and tables from the text.
to separate between the end section of text and a new heading.

Format of type and headings

Font
1. Times New Roman font should be used for the text and heading of your report.

Size and style of type

1. Used size 12 in normal font style for the text of your report.
2. Italics style can be used to emphasize text where necessary but it should not be overused.
3. Underlining or bold should be avoided in the text as it is distracting.

Headings
1. Headings are numbered according to their importance, using the decimal numbering
system.
2. Headings without text should never appear on the bottom line of a page.
3. Capital letters are for the first letter of the first word in each heading only, except for any
acronyms (e.g. IEEE).
4. Avoid underlining the heading.
5. Size and style of headings should vary according to the importance of the heading, as
follows,
Size and style of headings
Heading

Size

Style

Example

First-level

18

bold

1. Introduction

Second-level

16

bold

2.1 Renewable Energy

Third-level

14

bold

2.1.1 Cost Analysis

Fourth-level

12

bold italics

2.1.1.1 Equipment cost

Report Structure
Title page The report title, your name, your Sunderlands ID, your SEGis ID, your
lecturers name, your course title and the date.
Abstract A short and brief summary about your research report.

Introduction Present industrial background about your topic and briefly explain the research
objectives and what is to be covered in your report.

Headed sections A new heading for each mode of content covering the detailed observation
as per assignment question.
Conclusion Summarising your key findings.

References A detailed list of the references consulted.

- END OF COURSEWORK PAPER -