The Apple iPad and Your Supply Chain

If you haven’t already heard, Apple put its much anticipated iPad on pre-order sale today. And what do you know…the iPad has raked in more than 50,000 orders in 2 hours. That’s simply amazing given where people have restrained their spending these days. Whether or not sales continue at the frenetic pace remains to be seen. But this raises the question: how many of the orders will actually be fulfilled on the release date of April 3?

This is a valid question considering how often a single disruption in the supply chain can back up product availability for weeks or months. Apple already had one delay in the release date which was originally slated for the end of March, and while April 3 isn’t a significant delay, what’s to say that pent up demand won’t push that back further.

Say what you will but Apple traditionally hasn’t done well meeting deadlines for product shipments at least for initial product releases. You can simply blame this on overwhelming demand…a problem many companies would like to have. But in the past, Apple has been mediocre when dealing with production disruptions due to shortages in components and more recently, product issues (e.g. overheating with iPhones and iPod Touches).

While Apple is average when it comes to initial new product fulfillment, the company is among the best when it comes to managing its overall supply chain. This is a telling statement because the typical company is average if not below average when it comes to supply chain management. Whether or not they admit it, most companies struggle with visibility and tracking, and ironically, the smaller the company, the bigger the struggle. Come April as you’re waiting for your iPad to arrive, consider how well your organization would run if it had a quarter of Apple’s supply chain processes in place. Likely, you’d already be ahead of your competition.