Jamie Herrera, a director of product operations at Apple who oversees the academy, says its goal is to make an impact. “It takes a little bit more than just what you can get out of a training session,” he says. “We're able to pair them up with engineers, experts … and go deeper into: How do we take that learning and start to turn it into application?”
Apple has just one factory, which assembles iMacs in Ireland, and is generally secretive about its manufacturing processes. But its staff have decades of knowledge from collaborating with partners such as Foxconn—mostly outside the US—that make parts or put them into iPhones and other Apple products. Academy participants believe they have been treated to unique candor, including about how Apple recovered from its 2014 Bendgate scandal, in which some iPhone 6 models warped in tight pockets.
The company has run a training program for manufacturers in South Korea for several years. By opening up in the US, Apple could show the Trump administration, which is focused on increasing domestic manufacturing, that the company is rolling up its sleeves. That could help it win favors on tariffs and other potentially costly policies. “It’s goodwill,” says Harry Moser, founder of the industry-supported Reshoring Initiative, which tracks and encourages US manufacturing investments. “It’s great they are doing it, and there’s very few companies that have the money to do it.”
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To a small extent, working with upstarts could provide Apple employees fun opportunities for experimentation that may even inform its own manufacturing.
Herrera says Apple is not seeking any direct benefit from what he described as the significant investment of labor. “What we're looking at is that rising sea for all ships,” he says. “The fact that we're able to help US manufacturers in any way we can to elevate and accelerate their progress, it's only going to be better for everyone.”