Inventory Control Build it and They Will

Inventory Control Build it and They Will Text Walk down any street and it seems like everyone on it is communicating with a PDA of some sort if one includes the data capabilities of smart phones. Thus any invention that would increase the capacity of PDAs has the potential to bring in a very large amount of money, not to mention the gratitude of millions of people. Ken Burton is thus making a wise decision to invest in his invention.

However, wise as the decision may be, it remains a complex exercise. The following analysis suggests an efficient way for Burton to invest his initial funding of $250,000. Because we are given only the barest details about the invention I have had to make some assumptions garnered from the manufacture of PDAs and smart phones. One of the initial decisions that Burton must make in terms of setting up his manufacturing process is how far back in the manufacturing process he wants to go.

A cake baked from scratch does not usually include growing one's own wheat, but it can. We are not given any specifics about the invention in terms of its physical design, but we can assume that it is made out of similar materials to cell phones in general. These include a wide range of elements, many of which are toxic to work with at least under some circumstances and difficult to acquire in others because they are only found in areas of the world where social conditions are problematic.

Among these elements are antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, palladium, silver, and tantalum. While Burton could hire miners to supply these materials and then create a factory to transform and combine these materials (along with others) into the basic parts that will make up the device, this cannot be the most economical strategy. He might still choose to do so given that he would have a much higher level of quality control over the components as well as being able to guard the details of his break-through device.

However, given that initially he has a relatively small budget, it would seem that the only practical way to be able to buy enough component parts would be to buy at least some of them readymade. This should not be difficult. Given this choice, he would probably have to spend about one-third to one-half of his budget on acquiring the physical materials needed for the project.

This would include the costs of importing all the basic materials and devices that he would need and renting a climate-controlled space to store them in. He.