http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xs8c5c_national-geographic-megafactories-ikea_news
Reflection: Before watching the video, I originally thought that IKEA was just a European version of Wal-Mart. I thought that there wasn't much thought put into design of much of their products, and that they just were the type of company to produce as much as possible, as fast as they can in order to create the largest profit. I was impressed by how large their design staff is, and how many of their products are outsourced from numerous locations, including locations outside of Europe. I can not wrap my mind around how difficult it must be to create products that are efficiently produced on the assembly line while maintaining quality. It seems like IKEA spends a lot of their time on things that most people take for granted when actually buying their products. For example, I liked how the documentary showed the process by which IKEA produced their famous red shelf. It was both cheap, efficiently produced, made of quality, and easily packable. It's hard to imagine how there are so many products that IKEA offers, yet the majority of them require the attention of an actual human worker to either check the quality of the work, or assemble them properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment