Photo: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2011.
The conventional focus of product development is the improvement of its commercial and competitive attributes such as price, quality, features, and performance. This process is common for electronic goods as each new generation of a product (e.g. computers, phones, televisions) is quantitatively and qualitatively better. For instance, the second generation of the iPad had the same display surface (246 mm diagonal) as the first generation. Still, it was 16% lighter (600 grams versus 712 grams), 33% thinner (8.8 mm versus 13.4 mm), more performing (CPU and graphic display speed), and had more features (e.g., front and back cameras).
Products are increasingly being considered from a supply chain perspective, namely their sourcing and distribution. The final assembly of a consumer good, such as an iPad, is performed in Shenzhen, China, and then the finished boxed product is shipped by air to consumers around the world. This implies that air transportation costs are an important component of the total logistics costs of the product. In addition to the weight improvements of the second-generation iPad, efforts have been made to reduce its packaging dimensions. The outcome was a box that was 10% lighter and had 18% less volume, both being important considerations for air shipping. Keeping air transportation costs constant. It was, therefore, possible to ship 11 iPad 2s with the same weight/volume price ratio as 10 iPad 1s.