International Vs. Domestic Manufacturing In The Consumer Electronics Industry: How Feasible Do Businesses And Consumers View This Issue?
Open Access
- Author:
- Hiller, Ari Ross
- Area of Honors:
- Supply Chain and Information Systems
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Robert Alexander Novack, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. John C. Spychalski, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- international
domestic
manufacturing
supply chain
apple
consumer
electronics
business
location - Abstract:
- One present day issue for consumer electronics companies is to decide what locations are best to optimize current manufacturing processes or further, start new ones. It is a decision that will yield implications for a business and can be judged on a consumer, firm, or ethical basis. This thesis aims to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages for consumer electronics companies which are interested in the prospect of onshoring their product manufacturing operations back to their country of origin. This thesis uses Apple Inc. and its widely successful and known iPhone 5 as the primary example to investigate and research further whether onshoring make sense from a cost perspective and from a consumer behavior perspective. Given the company's recent announcement of its initiative to bring some of its manufacturing processes back to the United States for certain products, this thesis seeks to provide guidance and recommendations for how this type of manufacturing decision needs to be based on several different components. By analyzing the situation from a purchase behavior standpoint through distribution of a consumer behavior survey, this thesis provides insight into how knowing where a product is made plays a role in a consumer’s decision to buy one product versus another. Ultimately the purchase decision comes down to how much a manufacturing location will impact the final cost of a product. However, it is also important for consumer electronics companies to make such a decision with good ethical and business sense in order to not negatively impact company reputation or product quality.