It normally takes about six months to convert a clothing design to a product available in stores. The company produces 12,000 designs a year. Inditex restocks its more than 1,000 Zara stores in 31 countries twice a week, usually with new items, so customers always can buy the latest fashions. Sony Corp. is saving money and earning the goodwill of retail stores carrying its products by being more efficient. When the company introduces a new line of digital video or still cameras, it now ships directly from its factories to the retailer, who gets the new product within 72 hours.
Consumers benefit from such close internal and external collaboration, too.
They have more choices because more products are accessible, and they pay lower prices because costs decline, says Hau Lee, a professor of business and engineering at Stanford. When expected collaboration fails, consumers suffer. That's what happened last fall, when parts shortages forced Sony to cut in half production of its popular PlayStation 2 video-game consoles. Coordinating all the people who must work together to create a product has never been easy. In some ways it's harder than ever as planning and production facilities are scattered around the globe and final products often travel thousands of miles to their destinations.