In 2001 Dell became the number one provider of consumer personal computers in the world. The company became a global leader through a combination of inventory management and customer service. While competitors used a build-to-stock design, Dell utilized an assemble-to-order design. This meant that Dell only began building the PC until the order is received, using the order money to purchase the components. Dell kept no in-house stock of finished goods inventories. Dell’s supply chain design allowed for mass customization. While other companies in the industry had to guess at consumer preferences, Dell knew exactly what its customers wanted before manufacturing the product. This lean system would not have been possible without Dell’s supplier integration. The company outsourced all components of personal computers, only performing the assembly. To buffer against demand variability and minimize long lead times, Dell required its supplier to keep inventory in supplier logistics centers, which were small warehouses located within a few miles of Dell’s assembly plants. Each center was shared by several suppliers that paid rent to Dell. Dell owned none of the inventory in the logistics centers, keeping overhead low. Dell withdrew inventory from the logistics centers as needed, which averaged once every two hours. The just-in-time philosophy resulted in inventory turns of 122 per year. In order to maintain such lean manufacturing, Dell had vendor-managed-inventory arrangement with its suppliers. Suppliers decided when to order inventory and how much to order, while Dell set target inventory levels. Dell recorded deviations from these targets, and used quarterly supplier scorecards to evaluate how well each supplier did in maintaining the target inventory. The speed of the inventory delivery process gave Dell a distinct competitive advantage: they could continually