INTRODUCTION

Hewlett-Packard Company was founded in 1939.

Founders were William Hewlett and David Packard.
Headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Diversifying from its base in electronic test and measurement
equipment into computer and peripherals production, Which
now dominated its sales.

ABOUT DESKJET PRINTER

DeskJet printer was introduced in 1988 and had become one of
HPs most successful products.
Sales had grown steadily, reaching a level of over 600,000
units in 1990($ 400 million).

ANALYSIS OF THE CASE/ISSUES

The inventory problems in the European distribution center. HP faced long delivery
lead time of about four to five weeks from its production facility in Vancouver,
Washington, to Europe. The Vancouver plant is a high speed, high- volume facility
where manufacturing takes about a week.

HP concerned with high inventory levels and inventory imbalance in Europe. One
of the characteristics of the DeskJet product line is that it is customized for local
markets, a process called localization. This involve adding labeling and
documentation in the correct language and customizing the power supply for the
correct voltage level and plug.

Customization is done in Vancouver many weeks before the products arrive in

Europe. Furthermore, once the printers arrive in Europe, inventory imbalance might
occur in the following sense:
the European DC often finds itself with too much inventory of printer customized
for certain markets, and not enough inventory of printer customized for other.

What are the cause of these problem?

uncertainty about how to set the correct inventory level.
different localization options makes inventory difficult to manage.
long lead time to difficulty in forecasting.
high safety stock.
uncertainty in many local market makes forecasting difficult.
maintaining co-operation between the various HP divisions.

THE DISTRIBUTION PROCESS

There were four process steps:
Receive (complete) products from various supplier and stock
them.

Pick the various products needed to fill a customer order.

Shrink-wrap the complete order and label it.

Ship the by the appropriate.

What are the frameworks, tools and concepts that companies can use as they
think about the product engineering process and its impact on supply chain
performance?
The supply chain: which focuses on the flow of physical products from
supplier through manufacturing and distribution all the way to retail outlets
and customers, and
The development chain: which focuses on new product introduction and
involves product architecture, make/buy decisions, earlier supplier
involvement, strategic partnering, supplier footprint, and supply contracts.
These two chains will intersect as products move from development to
production, and just as clearly, decision made in the development chain
will impact the efficiency of the supply chain.

How can design for logistics concepts be used to control logistics costs and
make the supply chain more efficient?
DFL addresses ,using the following three key components: Economic packaging and transportation.
Concurrent and parallel processing.
Standardization.

CONCURRENT AND PARALLEL PROCESSING

What is delayed differentiation and how can Hewlett-Packard use delayed

differentiation to address the problem described in the case above? How
can the advantage of delayed differentiation be quantified?

when should supplies be involved in the new product

development process ?
This involvement of suppliers on design ideas to making
suppliers fully responsible for the design of components or
systems they will supply. Moreover, suppliers may be involved at
different stages of the new product development process. Early
supplier involvement is a key coordinating process in supply
chain design, product design and process design

What is mass customization?

Mass Customization is an operational strategy focused on inducing
velocity and flexibility in a make-to-order production process, with
the capability of producing at a minimum, a quantity of one, or
large quantities with minimal changeovers and interruptions. Mass
Customization products compete directly with standard products,
providing a company a competitive edge by having the capability
to manufacture specialized or custom products at the speed,
volume, cost, and quality as standard products.
Mass Customization requires an agile supply chain to function
optimally. Supply chain agility is the extent of network capability
that the organization possesses. Key to the success of an agile
supply chain is the speed and flexibility with which these activities
can be accomplished and the realization that customer needs and
customer satisfaction are the very reasons for the network.