At Foxconn in China, it took just 15 days.

The clear message - a lack of skilled workers, in a time of high unemployment, is another huge barrier to manufacturing in the US, versus China. And the ability to dictate what would not be accepted in Western companies - such as summoning workers from dorms in the middle of the night - is another huge advantage.

The article takes a look at various estimates, and says that producing the iPhone in the US would likely cost about $65.00 more than in China, considering labor costs alone. SCDigest suspects that ultimately that delta might be even smaller, if automation was employed.

But, as the Times notes, "building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility."

The Dark Side of Foxconn

The scale and flexibility at Foxconn City comes with a price, the Times says - a price paid by the workers there to either pump up Apple's profits or reduce the prices consumers pay for its products.

The Times says that "Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records."

Workers often work six days a week, frequently spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Many workers earn less than $17 a day. Those with a college degree may make $22.00, including overtime. Employees who arrived late were sometimes required to write confession letters and copy quotations. There were “continuous shifts,” when workers were told to work two stretches in a row.

Foxconn disputes these allegations.

Foxconn is little known outside the electronics industry, but its name was splashed across the news repeatedly in 2010, when some 23 workers at its Foxconn City plant committed suicide over a period of months.

Last year, a significant dust explosion at the plant killed at least two workers and injured more than a dozen others.

Two years ago, the Times says that 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens.

To be clear, such reports of worker abuse in the electronics industry, as well as other sectors such as apparel, have been commonplace in China for years.

The Times also notes that "current and former Apple executives, moreover, say the company has made significant strides in improving factories in recent years." That includes the Supplier Code of Conduct that is the basis for its supplier audits that are detailed in Apple's Supplier Progress Report. The Times says that report is often the first place where worker abuse in Apple's supply chain is documented. The first Progress Report, released in 2007, came about after several investigations by outsiders found significant abuse of workers at Apple suppliers. For the 2012 report, Apple increased the number of supplier audits over the previous year by 80%, tom 229.

Still the article says, there are inherent tensions between the code of conduct and manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness.

"Some former Apple executives say there is an unresolved tension within the company: executives want to improve conditions within factories, but that dedication falters when it conflicts with crucial supplier relationships or the fast delivery of new products," the Times says. It also quotes one former Foxconn employee as saying “Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost," though it should be noted that this manager was dismissed from Foxconn and is suing the company over that firing.

The high pressure and business necessity to rapidly churn out new products at ever more rapid cycle times found in high tech and consumer electronics companies - and increasingly other sectors as well - means the brand companies have to place a high premium on suppliers that can make things happen quickly - even if that means calling workers out of dorms at midnight to begin working on a new product.

Finding new suppliers is also expensive and difficult, and could lead to delays in releasing new products. With mass scale products like the iPad, only a handful of contract manufacturers would be able to take on the volumes, meaning the idea of Apple ditching Foxconn is unlikely.

Since the audit process began, the Times says something less than 15 suppliers have been terminated over code of conduct transgressions.

"There's a lot of rationalization going on," at Apple and other consumer electronics companies, Heather White, a research fellow at Harvard and a former member of the Monitoring International Labor Standards committee at the National Academy of Sciences, told the Times.

A sign on the wall at the Foxconn factory says, "“Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.”

Do Apple's Aggressive Procurement Practices Set Stage for Some Abuses?

The Times notes that Apple really puts potential suppliers through the wringer before awarding them business.

Apple typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs in an assembly, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Apple calculates how much it will pay for a part.

"Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits," the Times article says.

The result: suppliers "often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies."

The upshot for us from all this: Apple appears to be as aggressive as anyone in improving working conditions at its suppliers, and its Supplier Progress Report truly may set a real standard for large global companies. That said, there are certainly a lot of issues still to be addressed, and financial realities on both sides likely means it will be many years before Western style working conditions start to look more like those in the West.

What's your take on all this news regarding Apple's supply chain? Do you applaud its efforts, which are clearly out in front versus most, or are there too many "human costs" going into each iPad? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.