The making of a Dell laptop
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/sto...464876,00.html

An interesting look behind the scenes of what happens between the time when you order a computer from Dell and the time you get it delivered to you.

too much to read this late - need pictures :1orglaugh

Awesome article. Some cliff notes for the illiterate: Dell sells 140,000-150,000 computers a day, they use a well organised supply line with incredibly short demand times.
Theres are regional factories each surrounded by parts suppliers - all are connected so if at 10am dell is running short of 40gig hard drives an email is sent to the marketing department so that if you call at 10:30am to buy a machine they offer you a $10 upgrade to 60gig and a free carry bag if you take it to "shape demand".
Every two hours a factory emails a supplier with the number of components they need in the next 90 minutes..

Nuts. So very very well oiled.

In China last year BScs in engineering represented 46% of all university degrees; in America, it was 5%

Yeah lol the stats downt he bottom are scary:

· If Wal-Mart was a country, it would now be China's eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada

· UPS ships 13.5 million packages a day - which means that at any given moment, 2% of the world's GDP is in the back of a UPS delivery truck

· When multinationals 'outsource' work to developing countries, they typically not only save 75% on wages, but also gain a 100% increase in productivity

· Advances in fibre optics will soon allow cables to carry 48 terabits of data per second - enough capacity to enable all the printed material in the world to be transmitted via a single cable in minutes

· One hundred and fifty years ago 90% of Americans worked in agriculture; today, the figure is about 3% (top right)

· Google now processes approximately 1 billion searches a day

· Last year, of the 2.8 million science degrees awarded around the world, 1.2 million were gained by Asian students in Asian universities

· UPS's fleet of 270 aircraft makes it the 11th largest airline in the world

· In China last year BScs in engineering represented 46% of all university degrees; in America, it was 5%

· eBay now has 105 million registered users from 190 countries, trading more than £35bn of goods annually

me tool :D

I dont normally read the Guardian, but that was a great article!

awsome article

interesting article....

I wish people would use images more.