The four wheelin' glory
By Neha, Lindsey, and Julia
Site:
The usage of our product depends on how much the region relies on individual transportation. For example, in New York the majority of the people use public transportation to go virtually anywhere within the metroplex. Also, there is so much overpopulation that too much gas is wasted in traffic, and it takes a lot of time to travel on the roads. An abundance of personal vehicles in the city also would create pollution due to the congestion that would occur. Therefore, New York would not be an ideal location to place a SUV or truck factory. Also, there are not many immigrants in New York, so the labor would be expensive, whereas in the mid-south, there is a lot of open land where factories could be built. In the south, there are many immigrants which provides cheap labor sources for the industry. The profit will be greater because there will be less money spent on labor and the transportation of raw materials, which increases the profit of the final product. The ideal location of the Four Wheelin' Glory's headquarters and base of production would be anywhere between Texas and Nebraska and New Mexico and Alabama.
Situation:
We don’t want to put the plant in New York because it would be difficult to bring in the materials needed, because of it's urban and extreme eastern location. Since most of the United States' steel is produced in Pittsburgh, it would not be as expensive to ship the steel to the factory in the mid-South, as opposed to transporting the trucks from Pennsylvania to it's consumers, which are much farther west and south. This is because the Four Wheelin' Glory is a bulk-gaining product, and would be more expensive to transport the materials to a location in close proximity to the market and assemble the product there. It would be too expensive to transport trucks clear across the United States, to the consumers. Therefore, placing our plant in the middle of the country is a perfect location because there is farmland to the north and most of the SUV/Truck consumers are in the south and middle of the country. For those consumers outside of the general market, transportation of the vehicles will not take very long and will actually be cheaper than if the plant were on the East Coast and there are easily accessable highways for transporting. The ideal location would be near the south, specifically oklahoma, and east Texas. Because these people do more farming, and they need these big means of transportation because of their high and heavy loads.
Vertical Integration -
1) Mines for the extraction of raw materials ⇒ Processors of raw materials to create steel ⇒ Producers of steel ⇒ Marketers/Sellers of steel ⇒ Buyers of machines/materials needed to produce SUVs/Trucks ⇒ Car manufacturers ⇒ Car dealerships ⇒ Auto repair facilities/gas stations
2) Sap “Tappers” ⇒ Producers of rubber ⇒ Marketers/Sellers of rubber ⇒ Producers of tires ⇒ Bike/Motorcycle producers ⇒ SUV/Truck manufacturers ⇒ Marketers/Sellers of Bikes/Motorcycles ⇒ SUV/Truck dealerships ⇒ Auto repair facilities/gas stations
Transnational Transportation -
There is really no need for transnational transportation of the American-made SUV/truck industry, specifically the Four Wheelin' Glory because foreign countries have little, if any at all demand for pick-up trucks and American SUVs are not that popular either. Consumers in other countries around the world are buying Italian or Japanese made cars rather than American because Japanese made cars are generally less expensive and Italian/other European made cars are usually of higher quality.
Bulk Gaining /reducing:
This is a bulk gaining industry, because the cars start off as steel, and parts are added onto the raw material. The manufacturers collect different raw materials, individually and put them together, for their final product. Thus making their final product weigh more than the raw materials. Also the money spent on importing the raw materials costs less (transportation wise) than the exporting of the final product.
Transportation systems utilizied:
SUVs and Trucks have to be transported by carriers that only hold a limited amount of vehicles, therefore the most active dealerships must be close by because it takes time for these vehicles to be transported to their destination. In transnational cases, SUVs and trucks would be loaded onto boats and shipped which is a more expensive method of transportation.