The purpose of this book is to trace the history of globalization and its impact on supply chain management and to look at the problems and some of the solutions facing global supply chains in the current era. The current challenge is surviving the challenge of global competition. Good supply chain management can be a valuable tool in winning this competition.

The “green” or environmental sustainability movement has taken hold throughout the world. Its staying power is confirmed by that fact that environmental emphasis in organizations did not decrease during the recent global recession, but rather increased. However, since most organizations rely heavily on their supply base for providing components, materials, and services that become part of their final products, organizations must revisit their sourcing processes and choices to have a real impact on the environment. This book begins with an introduction to the idea of sustainability and to the concept of what it means to source to support an organization’s green initiatives, and why this is important from a holistic, lifecycle perspective. The initial chapters will also provide a point of view of how green sourcing fits into the organization’s entire portfolio of sustainability initiatives. Examples of industries and associations that lead the way in green sourcing will be presented. In addition, best practices in green sourcing will be discussed. The book also provides a perspective on how organizations can encourage and support their suppliers in pursuing green initiatives, and what types of initiatives provide a good starting point.

This book illustrates and explains a wide range of practical logistics strategies and analytic techniques to facilitate decision-making across functions such as manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, and inventory management. Logistics professionals must utilize a broad array of analytic techniques and approaches for decision-making. Effective use of analytics requires an understanding of both fundamental and advanced logistics decision-making techniques and methodologies. Further, logistics professionals must organize and view these analytics-based decision support tools through well-structured planning frameworks. In this book, we illustrate and explain a wide range of practical logistics strategies and analytic techniques to facilitate decision-making across functions such as manufacturing, warehousing, transportation and inventory management. We also describe how to organize these analytics-based tools and strategies through logistics frameworks that span strategic, tactical and operational planning and scheduling decisions. This book is intended for logistics professionals to use as a reference document that offers ideas and guidance for addressing specific logistics management decisions and challenges, and it will also serve as a valuable resource or secondary text for graduate and advanced undergraduate students.

If you are a supply chain manager, an executive, an entrepreneur, or a stakeholder in a sustainable business, this book will help you develop the awareness and skills needed to support sustainable supply chain management in your firm. The authors introduce the many ways that social and environmental responsibility can be integrated into supply chain management, from sustainable product and process design to programs and techniques that support product end-of-life management. The book begins with a discussion of sustainability and business strategy. It then explores product and process design, sustainable purchasing and logistics, and product end-of-life management topics. The authors include real-world examples and cases from some of the world’s leading companies in sustainable supply chain management. The examples range from small local companies to large multinational players to give a broad range of ideas to the reader. With case examples, workshops, and step-by-step instructions on how to create a sustainable supply chain, Sustainability Delivered is the most practical and usable book on the market that will help you and other business leaders to authentically pursue and deliver on sustainability ideals

Continuous improvement is essential but not sufficient to assure an organizations continued success. In order to be a market leader or indeed even to survive in many cases, resources must be devoted to longer-term strategic quality activities to address radical--possibly paradigm-shifting-- improvements that might affect the organization and its competitive position. These radical improvements might result from R&D efforts within the organization (proactive) that propel the organization and its products and services to the cutting edge of the markets in which they operate. Or these radical improvements might be developed by competitors or even by organizations in other industries (reactive) which, if ignored, might threaten the long-term survival of the organization if they are not recognized and reacted to in an appropriate way. This book is about how to think differently about quality and by doing so increase the creativity, innovation, and agility of an organization and its employees as well as the awareness of new developments in the marketplace and their possible impact on the organization and its markets. Quality must be addressed in strategic as well as operational terms in order for organizations to compete effectively over the long term. Strategic quality management requires insightful leadership. This book is about attaining the insight required to increase organizational creativity, innovation, and agility to create new paradigms, and survive paradigm shifts that originate outside the organization. Each chapter contains short cases illustrations about real organizations that illustrate the main points of that chapter. This book does not describe a detailed process that ostensibly leads to insight. Rather this book takes the position that what works for one organization might not work as effectively for another. It challenges leaders and managers to adopt a new way of thinking and presents thought-provoking ideas about how organizations can begin the process of charting their own paths to insight--and lasting success.

This is a book that does what the title says, and is different from most business process mapping information in three key ways. First, it lets you capture all the knowledge that goes into a workflow in any kind of organization, including the most difficult kind of all, the tacit knowledge people bring to the job and carry in their heads. Second, it is simple, powerful, flexible, and easy to learn. Finally, this book does not require installing, learning, and applying a complicated program (sometimes requiring reorganization to support the software rather than the software supporting the organization). It was developed by the author in a 15-year-long program of studying, analyzing, and improving avionics maintenance processes for the U.S. Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force, and then applied to organizations of all kinds over more than two decades. It has been taught and applied by the author and others in many short courses. In short—this book works.

: Information is power in supply chain operations, negotiations, continuous improvement programs, and process improvement, and indeed in all aspects of managing an operation. Accurate and timely information can result in better decisions that translate into improvement of bottom line results. The development and effective use of cost modeling as a method to understand the cost of products, services, and processes can help drive improvements in the quality and timeliness of decision making. In the supply chain community an understanding of the actual cost structures of products and services, whether with new or non-partner suppliers, can facilitate fact-based discussions which are more likely to result in agreements that are competitively priced and with fair margins. Further, accurate cost models which are cooperatively developed between supply chain partners can form the basis for joint efforts to reduce non-value-added costs and provide additional focus towards operational improvement. While many organizations feel confident they have an understanding of the cost structure for products and services produced internally, cost modeling often uncovers areas where significant cost improvement can be obtained. Cost of quality is a particular type of internal cost model that analyzes the true costs associated with the production of less than perfect products and services. The development of a cost of quality model can provide insight into how products or services of higher quality can be produced at lower cost. This book provides the business student or professional a concise guide to the creation and effective use of both internal and external cost models. Development of internal cost models is discussed with illustrations showing how they can be deployed to assist in new product development, pricing decisions, make-or-buy decisions and the identification of opportunities for internal process improvement projects. The creation and use of external cost models are discussed providing insight into how their use can drive collaborative improvement efforts among supply chain partners, better prepare for price negotiations, and keep negotiations focused on facts rather than emotions--all while allowing for future discussions with preferred suppliers to focus on more strategic and operational improvement initiatives, and less on pricing. A number of detailed cost model examples are provided to educate on both how cost models are constructed, and to demonstrate how they have been effectively deployed

If you’re a manager of a supply chain operation, or a student learning about supply chain management, this book will provide not only an overview of supply chain management but also a framework for subsequent, more detailed study in various aspects of supply management. This book reviews the evolution of supply chain management concepts and discusses trends in global markets and strategic competitiveness. It then focuses on the major issues involved in managing a competitive supply chain including: forecasting, inventory management, distribution, dealing with uncertainty, reverse logistics, and customer service. Coverage of the dynamic, evolving issues pertaining to supply chains that affect the global business community concludes the book. With this book in hand, you’ll be better equipped to conceptualize the management of supply chains as a collection of business processes; identify primary and secondary value chain processes; distinguish between the umbrella term, “supply chain management,” and its component functions; and understand the basic tools of forecasting and the need for accurate data and forecasts on which to base supply chain management decisions.

In the past, vertical integration was a way to gain efficiency in supply chains. Today, vertical integration doesn't work as well because specialty organizations have developed to perform specific tasks very efficiently. Efficiency through supply chains is achieved today by linking specialists throughout the vertical business hierarchy. This sort of linkage is possible because of the technology that has developed which facilitates it, making today supply chains both faster and more cost effective. Supply Chain Information Technology surveys the different systems that are used by businesses to achieve these efficiencies. The target market for this book is practitioners in the supply chain management field, one of the fastest growing fields in our economy. The rapid growth in computer technology provides supply chains with valuable tools to better coordinate and control their operations. This book describes how these systems provide supply chains with information system support. The design of these systems and the tasks they perform are demonstrated with the help of analytic techniques and models that are used in the book.

This book examines the security challenges and opportunities that the nation-states of Asia confront in an era of globalization. With consideration of the increasingly border-less nature of international relations via the integrative process of globalization, this book explores the emerging threats to regional and national security in Asia. It looks beyond traditional military threats, analysing non-traditional aspects of security including economic, social, environmental, transnational, energy, health concerns and threats posed by organized-crime groups. Its approach is organized both theoretically and, in a country-specific, case study form which provides contemporary examples of the threats faced in the region. By acknowledging that contemporary Asian security has become much more complex and complicated, it highlights the uncertainty and instability that the nation-states of the Indo-Pacific region confront. Presenting both a globally oriented and expanded vision of Asian security, this book is an excellent resource for scholars and students of Asian Studies, International Relations and Global Studies.