Module 9: Making of the Dell laptop

       In chapter 16 of this book Thomas describes the process that went into purchasing and building his dell computer that he wrote this book on.  Wow!  I felt like I had to read through the process a couple times just so I could begin to wrap my head around the complexity of the procedure.  I had never thought about contacting a company you purchased a product from and finding out the back story, but this got me interested in trying that for some of the products I will purchase in the future. Dell has many suppliers that they work with who, when an order comes in, they are notified of what specific parts they need to ship out in order to fulfill the customer’s order.  They do this as a sort of back-up.  Just in case there is a supplier that runs into a problem or does not have the product in stock it won’t set back Dells orders as much as other companies.  When one of their suppliers does not have a product in stock they are able to receive it from another supplier.  Friedman write’s down where all of his parts came from on pg. 582. There are too many to write down, but I would recommend looking them over to get a better idea of the concept.  This leads to another question posed which is: Does al-Qaeda have a supply chain?  The answer is yes.  Because of the flat world it makes it easier for terrorist groups to have supply chains.  Although they are not dealing so much with products as they are lives, the skeleton is very similar.  Through the use of the internet and media al-Qaeda was able to recruit individuals of the same mindset to participate in suicidal acts of terror.  Not only could they recruit but they were able to film executions, beheadings, and murders; then post them on the internet for everyone to see.