Operations Management Our Supply Chain Has Called Essay

Operations Management

Our supply chain has called a team of manufacturing and material experts to figure out how the impossible can be made possible. Being a telecommunication company, the team discovered it could use a customized laser to poke holes in the aluminum small enough to be nearly invisible to the human eye but big enough to let light through. Our company has since realized that it needs lots and lots of laser (Satariano & Burrows, 2011). We have identified a company that makes laser equipment for microchip manufacturing which after tweaking does the job. Each machine goes for $250,000. We have since convinced the seller to sign an exclusivity agreement. We currently buy hundreds of such machines to make holes for the green lights that now shine on our company's myriad brands like the Mac Book Airs, Trackpads, and wireless keyboards. Most of our customers have never given the green light a second thought. In fact, its creation has given us a massive competitive advantage with regard to our operations. We have managed to build a closed ecosystem where we control nearly every piece of the company's supply chain from design to the retail store (Satariano & Burrows, 2011). Because of the volume of our operations we get discounts on parts, manufacturing capacity, and air freight.Our staff at the helm of operations is a big asset to us just like product innovation or marketing. Our operational excellence is unrivalled. This enables us to handle massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. Operational excellence has also enabled us to sell our products at a price that very few rivals can beat while still earning a 25% margin on the devices sold. Our operational excellence has enabled us confidence to enter notoriously cutthroat television market with a TV set that will integrate with existing Apple software like iTunes (Satariano & Burrows, 2011). When other computer manufacturing companies transported their products by sea, our company, in its endeavor to ensure that our Translucent blue iMacs would be widely available at Christmas, $50 million was paid to buy all available holiday airfreight space (Satariano & Burrows, 2011). This move handicapped our rivals like the Compaq that also later wanted to book air transport. When our iPod sales took off in 2001, we realized it was economical to ship iPod directly from Chinese factories to our customers' doors. One could actually buy one and receive it a few days later while in the process tracking its progress around the world through our website. Our supply chain has a philosophy that.....