Does Foxconn build laptop for Lenovo?

Hello everyone,

I was wonder if Lenovo have a contract with foxconn for making their Laptop. I know Quanta make some for them, but I am not sure about foxconn. After reading article online on the foxconn worker abuses and worker's suicide I decided that I am going to boycotted every single producted that is made by foxconn.

 

foxconn has contracts with all of the large manufacturers.   boycotting foxconn means you won't be buying a notebook anytime soon.

 

I didn't know that they made laptops/motherboards, but I know that on every laptop that I have opened I have generally seen ports/connectors labeled Foxconn.

 

Foxconn (Hon Hai) is one of the biggest manufactures related to many computer components in the industry. They also make lots of Apple products.

You might want to look into the suicide rates and realize how many people they employ. I will give you a hint. It is close to half a million. Check out suicide rates for China per 100k population. They aren't really abnormal; though of course this is averaged so not really a precise point. It is just something to think about.

The industry as a whole is not really great compared to the western takes on work quality and environmental factors. You should pretty much stop using electronics.

 

I have had 4 Dell laptops, each one had a large number of Foxconn components. Motherboard, heatpipes, "daughterboards" , etc.

When I had a thinkpad T60 I remember seeing a few things inside that were Foxconn.

 

I'm not completely sure on this one, but I think some Fujitsus were assembled in Japan by Fujitsu. I don't know if they still are or if they're using any foxxcon parts or not. Don't let others dissuade you from your principals. Having them is a good thing, but sometimes reality has to set it. Good luck in the quest.

 

Foxconn makes 90% of the Apple products.

Most of the contract manufacturers work similarly to Foxconn... if they leak the information (i.e. prototype) the brand label company would either sue and/or drop them as the contracting company.

if anyone whom have ever toured a contract manufacturer's factory would probably take a dim view of purchasing any more consumer electronics, since most of the workers usually operate 12 hours day 6 days a week. They would also get paid next to slave wage (well slave usually don't get a wage, but anyway), and if anyone complains about something they did (i.e. not fitting the keyboard properly), they could even lose their job.

I think most of these problems that you are seeing with Foxconn and suicide, are related to Apple products, since Jobs Inc usually take information leak so seriously, and anyone dare to break the code of silence probably will feel the wrath of Emperor Palpatine's (aka Steve Jxxs) secret police.

Microsoft was exposed using some very cheap labours for their mouse, keyboard and xbox controller products, so much so they are investigating their contract suppliers (surprise surprise) for employee treatment.

So next time when you buy your netbook or complain if Thinkpad is too expensive, spare a thought for what the cost cutting is doing to the entire labour market within the consumer electronics.

P.S. this is a good thing with Thinkpad, no one could care if next generation model gets stolen, since most people can't even tell which one is which in this whole product roadmap. Nor is anyone going to fork a million dollar for a replica of the leaked prototype.

 

It is an unfortunate reality in electronics production and assembly that there are not really alternatives for better labor practices or proper focus on environmental degradation from processes. OEMs and branded companies can showcase all they want how "green" or sustainable they are but the industry as a whole needs production shifts that are more concerned with the practices considering how many different components go into a product. Consumers must also be prepared to pay a premium.

 

So lets just get a piece of chalk and some tree bark, maybe we could also consider the tree bark for our cloth.... self sufficiency at its best.... oh don't take a bite of that Apple, since you could be infringing on trademark.

oh yes maybe we should use some carrier Pigeon (for the iPhone geek, you can refer to them as iPigeon), Gizmodo wouldn't have to try so hard to get some production prototype.

 

I hope that Lenovo doesn't contracted out their laptop to foxconn. I know that foxconn make alot of dell and apple.

Another suicide today, this make it 10th this year.

 

I don't understand how companies draw a line between "suitable work conditions" and poor wages. The main reason companies have these other companies do their contract work is because of money. They can get it made there for CHEAPER. Where do they think that savings comes from? A large part of it is from cheap labor and the cheaper cost of not having to maintain a "suitable work environment". So now companies, after hearing of these shocking conditions, act like they never knew and launch fruitless "investigations" with their right hand while the left hand gives the very same company a pat on the back and continued business for cheap production costs. It's all a show. If they were REALLY interested in enforcing suitable work environments, those would go hand in hand with increased wages and fewer working hours per week, and then magically your products isn't so cheap to produce anymore and the cost benefit is gone. Hey maybe some jobs will come back to America then! Doubt it.

 

Poor wages by US definition perhaps, but for chinese it's not really poor, considering the low cost of living there, if it's really so poor the workers can always quit, the reason is because it's not. It's not just foxconn, almost every manufacturing firm in China is like that. Foxconn has a hand in almost every electronic devices, even some parts in the machine to make your CPU are made by foxconn, you can start living in the stone age if you want to boycott their products.

 

most of the workers at these contract manufacturing plant is not paid a very high wage, but it is better than no job and no money, there is no unemployment benefits to fall back on.

The attractiveness of China as a manufacturing centre is purely based on the low wage and low overhead cost of running business (i.e. low corporate tax for the export orientated business, no employee health benefits). If these two conditions do not exist, then US or Norway could be just as attractive as the manufacturing centre.

 

900rmb is not very high for Chinese standard. The wage is slightly higher than what they will get if they are in the village, but the wage is still very low in the metropolitan setting. The price of food are raising to the US standard, right now conservatively speaking is around 1/2 of the price of the US.

In addiction they only hire people in their prime age 20 - 24, they will fire them when they are no longer as productive.

The CPU and Ram are not made by foxconn. Intel made the CPU. Foxconn's main business is assembling product. They get chipset and other component from other company.

I would rather buy product from other OEM that does not have these problem, such as Asus, Acer, or Lenovo. Even through they might have the same hiring problem, at least the is a chance that they treat they employee better.

 

1.Lenovo is a Chinese company.
2.Asus's and Acer's notebooks are assembled in China as well, specifically in QunShan, where almost all Taiwanese computer related companies have their manufacturing center there.

 

just connecting the dots for you.

 

absolutely yes,They have contract with each other since 2004

this is source in Chinese, and Google translate , keyword :
联想将于富士康合作

 

Thanks, this mean that I won't be buy a laptop unless I really need it.

 

Of course there are alternatives. For example there are still some smaller manufactuers like Panasonic who make units in Japan - as are some of the Sony lines if you order them from Japanese market importers.

The problem is what you stated in the end - as long as consumers are willing to pay, not a "premium", but the actual cost of a laptop produced in decent conditions.

Everybody wants cheap cheap cheap in electronics and they dont stop to think about whether this is sustainable. Yet if it was say food, they would understand instinctively that if you are getting what you think is a 5-star meal for 5 bucks then either there are illegal immigrants in the kitchen or you are are eating some crap flavoured to cover up the mess.

So there are alternatives - the consumers need to face reality.

Who knows if folks actually started thinking about what they are buying and took a stand for honest quality we might even get better screen on these things instead of the awful ones we have these days.

As for Foxconn, yeah I would boycott laptops made by them if you know they are the outsourcer. Not only because of the workers abuse but also because if they are abusing their workers to save money, then they are also damn sure cutting corners on what is actually inside your laptop.

 

Just a note: all restaurants have illegal immigrants in the kitchen, even the best ones. So if someone wants to be moralistic and not support illegals then they really can't eat out.

Just like if you do not want to support bad working conditions in China, you have to stop buying almost all consumer goods. It is a sad fact of life.

 

与此同时联想将继续向台湾合约笔记本厂商订购产品。其中包括广达、仁宝和神达。而与富士康合作开发笔记本，可以使联想在于这些笔记本代工厂商合作中得到更为有利的位置。

from the above, it says that Lenovo has laptop manufacturing contract with Quanta, Compal and Mitac, while Foxconn will be responsible for JDM (joint design manufacturing).

Thinkpads are manufactured by several different manufacturers, which operate out of different facilities in China. One in Shanghai, one is Su Zhou and another one is in Shenzhen.

I don't think Foxconn is directly responsible for all the manufacturing and assembly of Thinkpads, they only manufacture some of the parts (or maybe a couple of the non-Thinkpad classic laptops).

 

Foxconn does a lot more than assembling parts, just look at some of the CPU socket on your motherboard, or some ports, there will be a Foxconn brand there. Even those Japanese makers will use some Foxconn parts.

For their wages, it's reasonable in China, low education factory worker gets around 900 RMB as base pay in China standard, which is more than enough for expenses unless you are talking about expensive cities like Shanghai (where a small apartment cost at least a million USD now).

Work hours is reasonable for China as well, if you think 6 day works week is bad, my father's company's branch factory in China works 7 days a week almost every week, with average of 2 days of rest per month, but there is overtime pay and workers are actually volunteering to work on weekends. For the military style kind of stuff, from what I saw, it seems to be a local custom or something to have a parade before work start and when work ends. Standing at attention for punishment though is really over the line there.

Oh, they just mass ordered around 300 CNC machines for ipad production, if you don't like foxconn, don't buy ipads.

 

900 RMB is not nearly enough to live in any of China's coastal cities, and most of the contract manufacturing occurs in major coastal cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc, where efficient logistics and ports/freight airport are available close. These people live in Squalor by any stretch of imagination, but it is better than no work. Since these have little alternatives to fall back on, given they can't find better work with their limited education.

Also, volunteering for work does not mean the work pays well, it just means these people are desperate. Same sort of situation occurs in Great Depression in 1930s, where people lined up for work despite how poorly they get paid.

7 days a week is excessive and illegal as per Chinese work labour law, which limits it to 60 hours max per week. But many factories break such law, only because there is no people enforcing this standard, unless it is exposed in the media or something.

The location of the factory is located to factor in the wage rate, government incentive, logistics (i.e. deep water ports and fast train network), the average local education level, the availability of university graduate, the availability of migrant workers, etc.

Also, it is not a local custom to have parades or anything like that, it is simply a way to enforce the workers to abide draconian rule.

Praying on the weak and defenseless seems to be quite prevalent in the contract manufacturing industry, which is a shame. But something to be expected, since people just want things dirt cheap with limit regard for environmental and human cost. Much like factory farming.

 

this thread has gone off-topic.   if everyone wishes to discuss labor laws and practices, please use the off-topic forum here.   this is the IBM/Lenovo board after all.

since the original question has been asked and answered, i'm closing this thread.