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1. Make a batch of bugged boards

2. Wait for an order from apple

3. Add the bugged boards

If the warehouses and manufacturing lines are all in China (as is the case with just in time manufacturing) I don't see why this is difficult to pull off.

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I'd expect shipments across the Pacific to be aggregated into the smallest possible number of containers and only subdivided into batches for individual customers at the last possible moment, in order to minimize both transportation cost and the risk that any single customer loses their entire order when a container falls off the ship.

Is that not how it works? If so, I'd like to know why.

That'd depend on how the shipping is done. What you described would apply for something like retail, where the factory only deals/sells to a distributor (stateside), which then sells/ship them to retailers. Under that setup it would be hard to accurately predict where a particular motherboard would end up at the factory. However, I suspect for large orders, they won't bother with that and would send an entire shipping container or pallet to the customer straight from the factory.

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