Tech IT Easy

January 16, 2008

I Love how Apple’s logistics work

Filed under: Apple, Business strategy, Consumer electronics, Economics, Supply Chain, innovation, operations — Vincent van Wylick @ 2:33 pm

Macbook Air components:

  • 13 inch screen - same size as Macbooks
  • Harddrives - compatible with either iPods or iPhones/Touches (SSD)
  • Intel-CPU - possibly compatible with future portable devices

There’s a lot of overlap here with other devices that Apple is selling. And probably under the hood too.

Even if demand for the MBA is low, which I expect (certainly for the $ 1000 solid-state drive), Apple wins as production-capability is geared up and costs eventually fall.

What is that called in logistics, cross-fertilisation?

Vincent (sorry for the short tweet, no time for much more at the moment)

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7 Comments »

  1. @Vincent : this is what the true Industrial Design is all about.
    “Industrial Design” is not only about Design (the look & feel of the product), it’s also - and perhaps mostly, in the case of Apple and a few others (e.g. my beloved Optical Network Test Division at Agilent Technologies - to give an example in the B2B arena that I know very well), about Industrialization (how to manufacture, ship, and support the product).
    Now, speaking of Apple and this extraordinary MacBook Air, there is the one more thing that all of its competitors do forget : the Whole Product Solution, aka The User Experience.

    Comment by marc duchesne — January 16, 2008 @ 3:24 pm

  2. I don’t think it’s logistics here but product design & manufacturing rather. I would say a correct term too could be cross-platform component mutualization.

    Comment by Jeremy Fain — January 16, 2008 @ 3:33 pm

  3. @ Jeremy: I call it ‘logistics’ because Apple is like Nike, it produces nothing. But… a very nice term! I tried to find it in Google/dictionary and nothing (though I did find a techiteasy-post where you mentioned it before).

    @ Marc: I’m trying not to focus on the “Whole Product Solutions” here as I’m not sure how the user-experience on the MBA is. I imagine the iPod-harddrive will be crippling for one.

    I’m just amazed how, on the one side, you can try to be innovative, and on the other, find synergies with existing product-components to keep costs down.

    Comment by Vincent van Wylick — January 16, 2008 @ 3:53 pm

  4. @Vincent : don’t be confused with terminology, please. “User Experience” don’t mean “User Interface” or anything else as understood in the Computing world.
    The User Experience goes from the moment you decide to buy the product to the moment you switch for a new one. It includes the ease of use of the product itself (i.e. the user interface, the connectivity, the maintenance things), the way you have to or can deal with the vendor, the pre/post-sales technical support, etc.
    Many different aspects which are not pure technics.
    For instance, in the case of Apple, the Whole Product Solution starts when you enter an AppleStore (or, in our case us poor Frenchies, when you go visit the online AppleStore).

    Comment by marc duchesne — January 16, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

  5. Vincent, isn’t this “cross-platform component mutualization” just what the automobile industry has done for decades? (I guess they have shorter term for it, sorry Jeremy).

    I also think the term we’re after is excellent Industrial Design. Does someone still think dropping PowerPC was a mistake? =)

    Comment by Kari Silvennoinen — January 16, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

  6. Sorry Marc, but I fail to see how the Macbook Air sharing the same screen-size as the Macbook, or the same hard-drive as the iPod, contributes to the User-experience. The user couldn’t care less what synergies Apple benefits from on the supply-side.

    What will be interesting too see is if users will accept the MBA. It is not as powerful as the Macbook Pro, and not that different in features from the Macbook.

    Comment by Vincent van Wylick — January 16, 2008 @ 4:52 pm

  7. @Kari: for sure! Im not trying to point out anything innovative here. I’m just fascinated by “modular industrial design” I guess, and I’m (still!) very curious about what the exact term is for this phenomenon.

    Comment by Vincent van Wylick — January 16, 2008 @ 5:00 pm

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