Built for speed.Walking the floor of a Dell Computer production facility in Round Rock, Texas, is a singular experience. It's like someone decided to steal the best ideas of the last century and a half of manufacturing and jam it all into one building: Henry Ford's assembly lines are here, but so is Japanese just-in-time philosophy. Humans do some tasks, robots do others, often alongside each other. And it's all smothered smoth·er v. smoth·ered, smoth·er·ing, smoth·ers v.tr. 1. a. To suffocate (another). b. To deprive (a fire) of the oxygen necessary for combustion. 2. in flying conveyer belts, rapid-fire dumb waiters, computer screens and lasers. Along the far walls daylight creeps creeps see osteomalacia. in through the roofs of waiting delivery trucks; one fills up and pulls away, and the next immediately plugs the slot. It's mass production, but it's also custom building. Each machine is, in fact, assembled by a person, to order. But the real heart of the process is NASA-style control rooms scattered Scattered Used for listed equity securities. Unconcentrated buy or sell interest. around the building. Unlike most computer makers--unlike pretty much any manufacturer--Dell won't begin building a product until it's ordered. Parts come in just in time, but the product goes out, too, just in time. No wasted effort. It's a way of thinking, but it's also applying technology that most companies already have on hand. As Dell Chairman Michael Dell Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965, in Houston, Texas) is the founder and CEO of Dell, Inc. Biography Early life and education The son of an orthodontist, Dell was born in to an upper-class Jewish family and attended Herod Elementary School in Houston, says, in an exclusive interview in this issue, computer science has only just begun to make humans productive. "We're actually still at the very beginning, where a lot of companies haven't figured out how to use the stuff," Dell says. "There's still massive excess costs in the economy that are wasted because of inefficient communications." Which, when you see it in action, raises some profound implications for the test of the world. What will most of the world's chronically unemployed do when everything is as abundant and efficient as, say, mechanized mech·a·nize tr.v. mech·a·nized, mech·a·niz·ing, mech·a·niz·es 1. To equip with machinery: mechanize a factory. 2. agriculture, or Dell? Dell himself is positive on this point: Increase economic capacity, particularly through free trade, and people will create new industries and new ways to improve, as they always have. It's an enticing vision, one business and governments ignore at their peril The designated contingency, risk, or hazard against which an insured seeks to protect himself or herself when purchasing a policy of insurance. Among the various types of perils for which insurance coverage is available are fire, theft, illness, and death. PERIL. . P.S. Meanwhile in Mexico, just across the border from Dell, state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos struggles to figure out how to do the basic task of an oil company: Get the stuff out of the ground. Don't hold your breath. (Page 38) Greg Brown Greg Brown may refer to:
gbrown@latintrade.com |
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