A supply chain can also be designed and be beautiful

I wrote in the past about the huge role a well-greased supply chain can give you when innovating: "And the award goes to... the supply chain guy".

Tim Cook should get as much credit as any other key executives at Apple for the company's success because, unlike invention, innovation requires you to be able to deliver and to do it in a profitable way. It is all about plausible futures.

Businessweek has just published a fantastic article that talks with great insight and insider information about Apple's supply chain magical machine: "Apple's Supply-Chain Secret? Hoard Lasers". Here some excerpts:

• Question your competitors' established practices : "To ensure that the company’s new, translucent blue iMacs would be widely available at Christmas the following year, Jobs paid $50 million to buy up all the available holiday air freight space"
• Take advantage of the high price/weight ratio of your high-tech products: "When iPod sales took off in 2001, Apple realized it could pack so many of the diminutive music players on planes that it became economical to ship them directly from Chinese factories to consumers’ doors"
• Work obsessively close to your suppliers to make the most of their manufacturing expertise and rapidly improve the process: "Ive and his engineers sometimes spend months living out of hotel rooms in order to be close to suppliers and manufacturers, helping to tweak the industrial processes that translate prototypes into mass-produced devices"
• Design your own tools. If your product is unique, most likely you will need unique tools to manufacture it. : "For new designs such as the MacBook’s unibody shell, cut from a single piece of aluminum, Apple’s designers work with suppliers to create new tooling equipment."
• Slow down competition by hoarding key assets they might need as well:"To manufacture the iPad 2, Apple bought so many high-end drills to make the device’s internal casing that other companies’ wait time for the machines stretched from six weeks to six months"
• Demand transparency over pricing to more informed procurement decisions: "When Apple asks for a price quote for parts such as touchscreens, it demands a detailed accounting of how the manufacturer arrived at the quote, including its estimates for material and labor costs, and its own projected profit."
• Control progress and pace in real-time to be able to more rapidly respond in case of exceptions: "To track efficiency and ensure pre-launch secrecy, Apple places electronic monitors in some boxes of parts that allow observers in Cupertino to track them through Chinese factories, an effort meant to discourage leaks."
• Don't leave room for unexpected surprises. Again. Control everything: "When the iPad 2 debuted, the finished devices were packed in plain boxes and Apple employees monitored every handoff point—loading dock, airport, truck depot, and distribution center—to make sure each unit was accounted for"
• Brilliantly taken straight from Zara's playbook: "Once a product goes on sale, the company can track demand by the store and by the hour, and adjust production forecasts daily"

In summary, that whole end-to-end innovation process, from ideation to point of sale, is just a work of art. Apple has consistently demonstrated in the last 15 years that supply chain can also be designed and be beautiful.

Oh, and don't forget to buy Tim Cook's favorite book he gives to colleagues whom he is trying to convert: "Competing against time" by George Stalk