Several years have passed since the 'store wars' over barriers to foreign products at Japanese distribution firms. Yet among English-speaking readers, how these firms operate remains a puzzle. In this book, the best Japanese scholars in their fields attempt to unravel that puzzle. Avoiding culture-based explanations, they employ a systematic and rigorous economic logic---yet, since they also avoid mathematical notation, the argument remains accessible to generalist readers.

This book explains supply chain management (SCM) using the strategy-structure-process-performance (SSPP) framework. Utilizing this well-known framework of contingency theory in the areas of strategic management and organizational design, SCM is firmly positioned among management theories. The author specifically proposes a theoretical foundation of SCM that will be relevant to such areas as operations management, logistics management, purchasing management, and marketing. Both the static and dynamic sides of SCM are reported. On the static side, supply chain strategies are divided into three patterns: efficiency-oriented, responsiveness-oriented, and the hybrid efficiency- and responsiveness-oriented pattern. For each strategy, suitable internal and external supply chain structures and processes are proposed. On the dynamic side, the big issue is to overcome performance trade-offs. Based on theories of organizational change, process change, and dynamic capabilities, the book presents a model of supply chain process change. On structure, the focus is on the role of an SCM steering department. Illustrative cases are included from such diverse industries as automobiles (Toyota and Nissan ), personal computers (Fujitsu), office equipment (Ricoh), air-conditioning (Daikin), tobacco (Japan Tobacco), chemicals and cosmetics (Kao), and casual fashion (Fast Retailing and Inditex).The strategy and organization of SCM is systematically presented on the basis of the SSPP framework. In particular, the relationships among three management elements-strategy, structure, and process-can be identified in an SCM context. From many of the cases contained in this volume, there emerges an understanding of how to analyze the success and failure factors of SCM using the SSPP framework. In addition, the reader sees not only the static side SCM such as process operation but also its dynamic side such as process innovation and process improvement.

Distribution management is the first of a quintet of books specially written for South African undergraduate marketing students. The other books in the series deal with marketing research, production management, pricing and integrated marketing communications. The objective of the series is to place specific marketing topics in perspective and it is the indigenous flavour of examples and case studies that localise the content and enhance the discussions. Distribution management was written to fulfil the requirements of the modular system that is used by all the South African universities. The text is easy to read and embraces the full spectrum of distribution topics that are covered in undergraduate studies at tertiary level.

With the development of the integrative supply chain management approach, traditional thinking about concepts such as purchasing, materials management, distribution and logistics management has become outdated. Speculation on the reasons for dynamic growth of supply chain management in South African businesses ranges from the opening up of the domestic economy to the pressure of global competitors. The astonishing success of progressive organisations such as SA Breweries, Sasol, Iscor, Steinhoff and Sappi in the international marketplace, however, is in no small part a result of their early adoption of the supply chain philosophy (customer value creation, total cost of ownership, integration of processes and the reduction of cycle time) and they have contributed significantly to the unprecedented growth of supply chain management in South Africa. Supply chain management identifies the strategic impact and evolutionary direction of the field in a global market environment and emphasises the changes in processes and management thinking required to introduce supply chain management in South African organisations. It covers topics such as supply chain strategies, organisations, optimisation, performance improvement, customer service, quality and inventory management, total cost of ownership, green supply chain management, investment recovery, e-commerce, negotiations, transport and distribution management, the retail supply chain and global supply chain management. Supply chain management is aimed at all supply chain, logistics and transport management students.

The crisis of distribution is one of the longest standing and complicated issues facing human society. Imbued with social, political, historic, and cultural elements, it varies significantly across different countries as a result of all these factors. As an emerging economy which transferred from a planned to a market economy, China has experienced large distribution gaps since it implemented the Reform and Opening-up Policy in the early 1980s, requiring stronger economic law to mitigate and regulate the crisis of distribution. The two volumes examine the crisis of distribution that China faces and proposes policy and economic law methods that can be used to overcome the distribution dilemma. The author discusses the four main concepts and focus points of the crisis of distribution - distribution itself, the crises it faces, the rule of law and development before proposing a theoretical framework of "system-distribution-development" to resolve distribution problems that China faces. The book should be of keen interest to researchers and students of law, economics, and political science.

"Zero Inventories" is the definitive work on JIT! It is written for the key people in industry - managers, engineers, staff professionals and foremen, showing how to solve inventory problems and achieve stockless production. Its wide range of topics include: forecasting and inventory control methods; material requirements planning; systems for scheduling operations in manufacturing, procurement, logistics and project planning; systems for master scheduling and corporate planning; organizational problems of installing and managing new systems.

A perishable item is one that has constant utility up until an expiration date (which may be known or uncertain), at which point the utility drops to zero. This includes many types of packaged foods such as milk, cheese, processed meats, and canned goods. It also includes virtually all pharmaceuticals and photographic film, as well as whole blood supplies. This book is the first devoted solely to perishable inventory systems.
The book's ten chapters first cover the preliminaries of periodic review versus continuous review and look at a one-period newsvendor perishable inventory model. The author moves to the basic multiperiod dynamic model, and then considers the extensions of random lifetime, inclusion of a set-up cost, and multiproduct models of perishables. A chapter on continuous review models looks at one-for-one policies, models with zero lead time, optimal policies with positive lead time, and an alternative approach.
Additional chapters present material on approximate order policies, inventory depletion management, and deterministic models, including the basic EOQ model with perishability and the dynamic deterministic model with perishability. Finally, chapters explore decaying inventories, queues with impatient customers, and blood bank inventory control.
Anyone researching perishable inventory systems will find much to work with here. Practitioners and consultants will also now have a single well-referenced source of up-to-date information to work with."

This book describes the methods used to forecast the demands at inventory holding locations. The methods are proven, practical and doable for most applications, and pertain to demand patterns that are horizontal, trending, seasonal, promotion and multi-sku. The forecasting methods include regression, moving averages, discounting, smoothing, two-stage forecasts, dampening forecasts, advance demand forecasts, initial forecasts, all time forecasts, top-down, bottom-up, raw and integer forecasts, Also described are demand history, demand profile, forecast error, coefficient of variation, forecast sensitivity and filtering outliers. The book shows how the forecasts with the standard normal, partial normal and truncated normal distributions are used to generate the safety stock for the availability and the percent fill customer service methods. The material presents topics that people want and should know in the work place. The presentation is easy to read for students and practitioners; there is little need to delve into difficult mathematical relationships, and numerical examples are presented throughout to guide the reader on applications. Practitioners will be able to apply the methods learned to the systems in their locations, and the typical worker will want the book on their bookshelf for reference. The potential market is vast. It includes everyone in professional organizations like APICS, DSI and INFORMS; MBA graduates, people in industry, and students in management science, business and industrial engineering.

Good operations and supply chain management practices are essential for the existence of both private and public organisations offering goods or rendering services. These practices are subject to volatile changes in markets due to global developments and hence it is important to understand the drivers of change to be able to respond adequately. Trends in operations and supply chain management covers a number of these drivers within the realm of operations and the supply chains serving businesses, so that the reader is equipped to respond with robustness in the changing environment.

The book covers the topics from a practical perspective and shares many case studies and examples to take the reader on a logical path of understanding the trends in operations and supply chain management and the importance of the drivers of change while sharing practical advice and solutions for the global industry.

The contents include the following:

• Green purchasing fundamentals
• Design for the environment
• Environmental accounting and environmental economics
• Sustainable operations and supply chain management
• Food security
• Digital technologies and operations in the fourth industrial revolution
• Maritime logistics
• Construction supply chain

Trends in operations and supply chain management is aimed at undergraduate students as well as professionals working in industry to support the sustainable business practices and goals of their organisations.

'Work hard, have fun, make history' proclaims the slogan on the walls of Amazon's warehouses. This cheerful message hides a reality of digital surveillance, aggressive anti-union tactics and disciplinary layoffs. Reminiscent of the tumult of early industrial capitalism, the hundreds of thousands of workers who help Amazon fulfil consumers' desire are part of an experiment in changing the way we all work. In this book, Alessandro Delfanti takes readers inside Amazon's warehouses to show how technological advancements and managerial techniques subdue the workers rather than empower them, as seen in the sensors that track workers' every movement around the floor and algorithmic systems that re-route orders to circumvent worker sabotage. He looks at new technologies including robotic arms trained by humans and augmented reality goggles, showing that their aim is to standardise, measure and discipline human work rather than replace it. Despite its innovation, Amazon will always need living labour's flexibility and low cost. And as the warehouse is increasingly automated, worker discontent increases. Striking under the banner 'we are not robots', employees have shown that they are acutely aware of such contradictions. The only question remains: how long will it be until Amazon's empire collapses?

The book describes the application of hierarchical planning techniques to all the major functional areas of supply chain planning, including production, distribution, warehousing, transportation, inventory management, forecasting and performance management. In particular, the book provides a comprehensive review and understanding of how hierarchical planning techniques and principles can contribute to the effective and efficient management and planning of supply chain activities. The book begins with a review of some well-known, original hierarchical production planning techniques and implementations dating back several decades. Building on this historical base, it then reviews numerous more current hierarchical planning methods and applications covering a wide array of supply chain activities. Additionally, the book offers a number of new and original hierarchical planning techniques and algorithms covering different components of supply chain planning. These algorithms range from simple algebraic calculations to mathematical optimization models. The book also offers an original approach to hierarchical supply chain performance measurement and monitoring techniques. It further offers an original approach for integrating supply chain performance measurements into measurement systems such as the balanced scorecard which evaluate total firm performance. The book is written to cover the interests of a wide variety of audiences ranging from private industry practitioners, to academic researchers, to students of operations, logistics and supply chain management and planning. It features numerous graphical illustrations highlighting both methods and requirements for integrated hierarchical supply chain planning.

This book focuses on guidelines for reducing the energy consumption in warehousing processes. It presents a model of formal assessment for energy consumption in the context of storage-system logistics, as well as a computational model consisting of three sub-models: energy consumption models for forklifts and stacker cranes, respectively, and an energy intensity model for roller conveyors. The concept model is based on the assumption that the unit load is received at a zero-energy warehouse. Subsequent handling, transport and storage processes, in which the unit load is moved vertically and horizontally through the system, equate to changes in energy intensity within the logistics warehouse management system. Energy recovery based on the handling equipment used can be collected in batteries. The evaluation method takes into account the intensity of the energy supplied to the logistics system and reduces the storage of the recovered energy - this figure represents the energy needed to pass through the logistics unit load storage system, and can be expressed in an energy intensity map.

Logistic problems can rarely be solved satisfyingly within one single scientific discipline. This cross-sectional character is taken into account by the Research Cluster for Dynamics in Logistics with a combination of economical, information and production technical and enterprise-oriented research approaches. In doing so, the interdisciplinary cooperation between university, research institutes and enterprises for the solution of logistic problems is encouraged.

This book comprises the edited proceedings of the first International Conference on Dynamics in Logistics LDIC 2007. The scope of the conference was concerned with the identification, analysis, and description of the dynamics of logistic processes and networks. The spectrum reached from the planning and modelling of processes over innovative methods like autonomous control and knowledge management to the new technologies provided by radio frequency identification, mobile communication, and networking.

Two invited papers and of 42 contributed papers on various subjects give an state-of-art overview on dynamics in logistics. They include routing in dynamic logistic networks, RFID in logistics and manufacturing networks, supply chain control policies, sustainable collaboration, knowledge management and service models in logistics, container logistics, autonomous control in logistics, and logistic process modelling.

Fully grasp the core principles of logistics, distribution management and the supply chain, in addition to emerging trends and the latest technologies, with this definitive guide that offers clear and straightforward explanations. The Handbook provides practitioners and students with a complete, step-by-step overview of the many different aspects of setting up, managing and optimizing supply chains. Designed to offer a full appreciation of how supply chains are planned and operated, it is structured logically and delves into topics in more clarity and detail than disparate collections of research papers. Integrating both strategic and tactical insights, this textbook is underpinned throughout by real-world data and worked examples that bring the concepts to life. The seventh edition offers: Updates and solutions designed to meet the challenges faced by those studying and working in the sector New coverage of future supply chain related technologies, including artificial intelligence, data analytics, digital twins and autonomous mobile robots and how these can be used to optimize operations and increase productivity Online resources including lecture slides (tables, images and formulae from the text), acronyms and abbreviations and infographics. Written by an author team with extensive practical experience in some of the most challenging environments across the world, this seminal text is an invaluable resource for both practitioners and students, providing a useful desk reference for topics across the wide ranging and vitally important fields of logistics and the supply chain.

MRP II: Planning for Manufacturing Excellence, an authoritative and insightful text, explores and defines the principles of Manufacturing Resource Planning methodology. It describes how the manufacturer can utilize and institute these principles effectively for maximum profit. Written from a user's viewpoint, the author presents MRP II as a planning tool used to achieve successful execution in differing manufacturing environments. The text features extensive end-of-chapter case studies, chapter quizzes, and their solutions as well as a glossary of terms. It also includes specific goals for manufacturing environments such as short lead times, reduced work-in-process, and flexibility to demand. In addition, detailed explanations of recent approaches to both infinite and finite scheduling are examined as well as execution concepts for processes, ranging from continuous synchronized process flow to nonsynchronized interrupted flow. Designed to provide readers with the principles of MRP II as well as its application to planning and manufacturing execution, this essential guide fulfills the training needs of manufacturing personnel and community college students. It is also a useful resource for material and manufacturing practitioners who require in-depth knowledge of MRP II or those who use it as a reference book to assist in The American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) certification.

Decision Criteria and Optimal Inventory Processes provides a theoretical and practical introduction to decision criteria and inventory processes. Inventory theory is presented by focusing on the analysis and processes underlying decision criteria. Included are many state-of-the-art criterion models as background material. These models are extended to the authors' newly developed fuzzy criterion models which constitute a general framework for the study of stochastic inventory models with special focus on the real world inventory theoretic reservoir operations problems. The applications of fuzzy criterion dynamic programming models are illustrated by reservoir operations including the integrated network of reservoir operation and the open inventory network problems. An interesting feature of this book is the special attention it pays to the analysis of some theoretical and applied aspects of fuzzy criteria and dynamic fuzzy criterion models, thus opening up a new way of injecting the much-needed type of non-cost, intuitive, and easy-to-use methods into multi-stage inventory processes. This is accomplished by constructing and optimizing the fuzzy criterion models developed for inventory processes. Practitioners in operations research, management science, and engineering will find numerous new ideas and strategies for modeling real world multi- stage inventory problems, and researchers and applied mathematicians will find this work a stimulating and useful reference.

The 2022 edition of the Rules and Guidance for Pharmaceutical Distributors, the 'Green Guide', is the essential reference for all distributors, brokers of human medicines, importers and distributors of active substances in the UK.It provides you with the single authoritative source of European good distribution practices and UK guidance, information and UK legislation on these activities.The new 5th edition has been updated to incorporate changes made after the UK's exit from the European Union on the 31st January 2020.It also incorporates new guidance on pharmacovigilance for wholesalers, the naming of sites on a licence, self-inspection, and the responsible person for import.It brings together EU guidance on good distribution practice and the MHRA's expectations for compliance. There is also a new flowchart for the registration of handling active substances