For example, California's Stanford Graduate School of Business has just held a major conference on another key part of environmental policy for businesses -- supply chain management.
This may be the crucial test for Mr Dell who, after all, gave his name not just to the firm but to a whole business model (just-in-time, made-to-order manufacturing using an outsourced supply chain), key elements of which have since been adopted by his competitors.
This action was carried out very quickly by freezing DoD's key staff out of the chain of command and isolating them from the decision-making process within DoD.
This could reduce productivity if it damaged the global manufacturing supply chain, which often involves multi-national companies ordering many of their key components from overseas.