Labor input for manufacture of early personal computers

Question

In the early days of personal computers, manufacturing was not as automated as it later became, and a factory would often consist of people sitting at tables placing components by hand.

I'm interested in how much labor went into each computer. Not talking about what went into making the chips etc, or driving the trucks or selling on the retail floor, but just into the manufacturing of computers from components.

I would be interested in figures for any of the early personal computers, but to pick one for the sake of definiteness, say the Apple II; one related account I did find for the Apple I, the very first batch of that first computer that company made, 50 machines to be assembled (though at that time that just meant the circuit board and components thereon) for Paul Terrell's Byte Shop in 30 days; this was just barely accomplished by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ron Wayne, Patricia Jobs and Dan Kottke (exhaustive list?). Say they averaged five hours a day (some of them had day jobs), so that's 5 x 5 x 30 = 750 hours, divided by 50 machines is 15 hours per machine. Later machines were more complex, but processes became more efficient; would those factors more or less cancel each other out?

How much labor (in hours, dollars or as a percentage of parts cost, wholesale price or retail price) did it take to assemble an Apple II?

Answer 1

I don't have exact figures, because as pointed out in the comments it will vary massively between different production lines, machines, and times, and manufacturers weren't eager to publish this kind of information. However, it's likely to be less time than you think.

Wave soldering makes assembling an entire board very quick, and was starting to become popular in the 70s and 80s, so you can bet that anyone making complex products like computers would have been quick to switch to it. The question then becomes how quickly can you place all of the correct components onto a board and clamp them in place (with a prebuilt jig to make sure they're in the right place)? That's a very fast operation once you get the hang of it.

Answer 2

It seems the answer is only a few percent of components cost. For example, Jef Raskin, "Preliminary Cost Investigation" (27 September 1979) in "The Macintosh Project: Selected Papers from Jef Raskin (First Macintosh Designer), Circa 1979," gives an estimated cost in 1981 to build the Macintosh as then envisaged: total cost $346, of which labor to build and test $10, the rest being components. A note suggests that economies of scale and automation could end up reducing these figures to $212 and $2 respectively.