I’ve heard a lot about Dell’s supply chain, so was interested to see it in action this week when I placed an order for my new desktop machine (their XPS 630 is a terrific machine if you make a few upgrades).

Dell has an order tracking page – so, anxious to see the status of my new arrival, I’ve been checking it a couple of times a day just to see what’s up. But strangely nothing seemed to be moving – I kept seeing that my order was “in production”. But finally this morning I got an email telling me my order had shipped:

Of course, I decided to check into Dell’s order page right away and see if there was any more detailed status (I thought I might find a delivery time estimate from the courier company). But here’s what I saw when I logged in:

Hmm, my “just shipped” computer hadn’t been built yet. Strange. I thought the problem must be on my end. So I tried re-logging in, switching browsers, refreshing pages, checking the newspaper date to make sure I hadn’t fallen into a spinning black hole, but nope… Dell was apparently shipping me a computer that hadn’t been built yet.

Now, to be entirely fair, I checked it later today and the updated order tracking page now shows that my computer is on its way. So all is well. But given their terrific built-to-order model I was hoping to be more impressed by the window into Dell’s supply chain.

That said, I’m still on the edge of my seat, I can’t wait to receive my new machine!