The tragic explosion at a iPad 2 polishing plant in Chengdu has already killed three and wounded dozens, and the closing of that facility could affect iPad 2 supply by up to 30%.
In the short term, iPad 2 supply is likely to get even worse, as Foxconn has just closed all of its polishing plants across China for investigation.
At issue is the explosive aluminum dust that fills the air of Foxconn’s polishing plants, and which ignited at Chengdu.
Right now, the investigation is only supposed to take a couple of days, but if there are any safety issues discovered, fixing them could take an indefinite amount of time.
As for Chengdu, when that polishing plant will go back live is stiill unknown, but if it’s capacity isn’t restored soon, it could affect both Foxconn and Apple’s bottom line, and might even lead to Apple migrating to some of Foxconn’s competitors for portions of the iPad 2 assembly process.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
