Operations Performance
Production
Dell is involved with both manufacturing and retail. Dell manufactures most of its products when the order is placed due to the very customizable options they offer to anyone that happens to be in the market for a computer. Their strategy in this is to cut down on costs associated with inventory. This is called the just-in-time approach, and it reduces inventory cost due to the fact that they have a very small amount of products lying around waiting to be purchased (Learning from dell). On the retail side of things Dell handles almost all of its business online, but there are many companies that buy large quantities of premade electronics to sell in their retail store, such as Best Buy. As a retailer and manufacturer they design and develop their products within the company. To produce these products Dell uses sole sources rather than captive suppliers. There are plenty of options to get the supplies they need so they shop around for the best price. Dell is going to have a difficult time keeping the momentum that they has established unless they do something to differentiate themselves from the multitude of producers in their market. This is mainly because many electronic companies these days have adopted and improved dells just-in0time approach.
Facilities Location Dell is international in focus. In fact they offer products to over 100 countries. Because Dell handles all of its retail business online, it is available to all countries around the world. As far as manufacturing goes, Dell has tons of plants located in many different countries. For instance Dell has an assembly plant in Penang, Malaysia, and in Xiamen, China. These plants serve the Asian market and manufacture 95% of Dell notebooks (Dell transfers desktop production to China). There is also a manufacturing plant in Chennai, India. Dells strategy in opening these plants were to capitalize on the ever growing population in all of these areas by getting their name recognized as one of the best electronic manufacturers that also offer the best value for the customers money (Dell transfers desktop production to China). With China and India expanding at such an alarming rate, this international movement will definitely help Dell to keep the momentum that it has built over the past few years. They also do not have to worry about their reputation of having bad customer service following them as much. This could save them a great amount of money in their public relations department.
Supply Chain Management
Dell assures that they have the right amount of product at the right place at the right time because they have multiple sources for all of their supply needs. Dell is great at this because like I previously stated they use a just-in-time approach for manufacturing, however they have made some recent improvements to this. Instead of waiting for orders to be placed they now have a stock of partially completed items that have plenty of room for customization. This helps majorly in getting products to the customer quickly, and also cuts down on the cost of production (New Supply Chain Lessons from Dell). Evidence that shows that they are better then competitors is their guarantee that your customized product will be made and sent within twenty-four hours of processing your order. With all of this in mind Dell has no problem with aligning suppliers (they have a multitude in every country they manufacture), and customers (they make the product once it is purchased), and making sure everything is completed in a timely fashion. So in turn Dell definitely sources aggressively, and because of their strategies there are no obvious inefficiencies. Due to the adjustment in Dells supply chain, they are much more likely to continue to add to their momentum in the years to come. This is because they have made improvement that were needed in order to compete in a market that is constantly changing.
