Within a few years, Apple built computers to order and held almost no inventory on its books. The operations team’s pursuit of that goal included painting a yellow line down the middle of factory floors. Components on one side of the yellow line remained on a supplier’s books until Apple moved them across the line to be assembled into a new computer. That reduced Apple’s costs because, under generally accepted accounting principles, the company wasn’t in possession of the inventory, even though it sat in its own warehouse, until the parts moved down an assembly line. The concept, which was
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