Develop a Transportation Improvement Plan

Table of Contents

Background of the Organization3

Products and Services3

Markets for Apple's Products4

Discussion6

Logistics at Apple7

Supply Chain Logistics8

Supply Chain Strategies9

Transport Improvement Plan12

Apple's Logistics and e-commerce13

Stocking of Products13

Packaging of Products13

The Transport Plan15

Further improvements18

Optimizing transportation networks for more efficient trips18

Truck to Rail, Air to Sea18

Retail Partner Expansion18

Container Optimization19

Packaging Innovations19

Conclusion20

Develop a Transportation Improvement Plan

Background of the Organization

Apple has come a long way since its 1976 founding, evolving from a pair of electronics-minded friends trying to sell printed circuit boards at their local amateur computer club to a 14,800-employee company with more than $14 billion in sales and an internationally recognized product line. Founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the company will be initially called Apple Computer Incorporation, but dropped the name for Apple Incorporation, in 2007 when it decided to move into mobile devices like the IPod and IPhone and later the I Pad (Amelio, 2008).

Today Apple is the most valuable brand in the world market and its value expected to keep rising. The company's success is attributed to a number of factors such as; its late leader Steve Jobs, its strong corporate culture, smart marketing and effective communication. However, Steve Jobs laid Apple's success down to its ability to lead by expressing its visions through its products exciting you and making you proud to own one of its products(Segall, 2012).

Products and Services

Apple Inc. is a multinational company based in America and it develops designs and markets personal computers, computer software, and consumer electronics. Some of the very popular hardware products of Apple Incorporation include the iPod, Macintosh line of computers, the iPad and the iPhone. The software of Apple includes the operating system of Mac OS X; Aperture, a professional photography package; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iTunes media browser; the iWork suite of productivity software; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; the Safari web browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system. According to the estimates and reports of August 2010, Apple Inc. functions with more than 301 retail stores in ten countries. It also operates an online store in which the software and hardware products are offered to the customers for sale (Moritz, 2010).

The reports issues in May 2011, the Apple Inc. has become one of the world's largest companies along with being the most valuable company in the world that provides to its customers by surpassing Microsoft. Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated January 3, 1977, the Apple Incorporation was previously titled as Apple Computer, Inc., and this name of the company continued to its first 30 years.

However, later, the word “Computer" was removed on January 9, 2007, and this was done for the purpose of reflecting the company's continued enlargement into the markets of consumer electronics market along with the already existing and operating conventional focus on the market of personal computers. According to the company reports issues in the ...