The development of international trade is driven by international logistics and management and the provision of the global supply chain. The ultimate objective of global supply chain management is to link the market place, distribution network, manufacturing/processing/assembly process, and procurement activity in such a way that customers are serviced at a higher level yet lower cost. Overall this has introduced a new breed of management in a computer literate environment operating in a global infrastructure.

Addressing this complex topic, Alan Branch's new book fulfills two clear objectives:

• to provide a concise, standard work on the subject, written in lucid language that embraces all the ingredients of a notoriously complex subject with a strategic focus
• to extol best practices and focus on all areas of the industrial and consumer sectors and their interface with changing international market needs.

Until now, no book dedicated to international logistics and supply chain management was available. Practically-oriented, this book features numerous case studies and diagrams from logistic operators. An ideal resource for management students, academics and managers who need a succinct treatment of global operations, Branch's book skillfully illustrates his ideas in practice. It is a book which should be on the shelf of every practitioner and student of the subject.

Also available from Routledge:
Elements of Shipping, Eighth Edition, Alan E. Branch. (978-0-415-36286-3)
Maritime Economics: Management and Marketing, Alan E. Branch. (978-0-748-73986-8)

In his 1985 book, Competitive Advantage, Michael Porter introduced the concept of the value chain and described it as "a systematic way of examining all activities a firm performs and how they interact, (necessary) for analyzing the sources of competitive advantage," and introduced the idea of "linkages," which was the real breakthrough in management thinking. Thinking of a firm as a series of horizontal and vertical linkages put the spotlight on the silo mentality within which firms operated and how business schools structured curriculum. The silo mentality caused business students unable to see the firm as a holistic entity, an understanding of how all of its parts fit together to develop competitive advantage. Students graduating with a silo mentality perpetuated the silo mentality in business firms. This book draws together existing knowledge to help facilitate the shift of mind necessary to effectively manage the value chain, and introduces a new conception of the value chain, one that has been copyrighted (2006) and provides a new perspective of the value chain commensurate with the demands of the 21st-century global economy.

Dieses Buch nimmt eine grundlegende Einfuhrung in die Logistik und eine Einordnung der Logistik in den Wertschoepfungsprozess vor. Dabei wird auch der Frage nachgegangen, in welcher Beziehung Logistik(management) und Supply Chain Management stehen. Neben Begriffen und Strukturen in der Logistik werden auch Prozessaspekte behandelt. Ziel ist es, in kompakter Form das moderne Logistikverstandnis, das uber die reine physische Abwicklung von Gutertransporten, Umschlag und Lagerung hinausgeht, aufzuzeigen. Logistik wird dabei sowohl aus der Sicht einer Managementkonzeption als auch aus der Sicht der technischen Dimensionen behandelt. Jedes Kapitel enthalt Lernziele sowie zahlreiche UEbungsaufgaben mit ausfuhrlichen Loesungen zum Selbststudium und zur optimalen Prufungsvorbereitung.

Based on the eponymous symposium and exhibition, Fulfilled: Architecture, Excess, and Desire considers the role of architecture in a culture shaped by the excessive manufacturing and assuagement of desire. Until the term became synonymous with Amazon warehouses, the concept of fulfilment described the achievement of a desire - sometimes tangible, often psychological or spiritual. With the rapid growth of e-commerce, our understanding of fulfilment has evolved to reflect a seemingly endless cycle of desire and gratification - one whose continuity hinges on our willingness to overlook the cultural, economic, and environmental impacts of our ever-increasing expectation of quick and efficient fulfilment. A closer look at fulfilment reveals a social, typological, formal, aesthetic, and economic practice constructed collectively through both digital and physical interactions. It is a cultural practice which evolves like a language, both universally transferable and contextually specific. As a symposium, exhibition, and now publication, this project aims to draw out these new arrangements, sticky relationships, and material by-products of cultural production and to ask again the age-old question, "What does it mean to be fulfilled?" This book examines the architecture of fulfilment through three lenses: logistical, material, and cultural fulfilment. Each reveals the new forms of architectural practice and research that are possible, typical, and even surreptitiously encouraged in the age of Amazon. Fulfilment networks are not invisible systems; they are tangible objects - warehouses, suburban houses, parking lots, cardboard boxes, shopping malls, mechanical systems, shipping containers - with which architects necessarily interact. From political mapping and questions of labour to digital and physical storage typologies, contemporary architects learn from and work critically within the architecture of fulfilment. Their interests and approaches include the material and environmental shortcomings of global logistics and the formal, representational, and cultural potentials of a culture of excess. This book highlights architecture's unique capacity to offer methodologies for confronting an increasingly ambiguous, alienating world and produce new knowledge and unexpected solutions that go beyond the dichotomies of rural and urban territories. Featuring new texts and visual work by more than a dozen contemporary architects: Ana Miljacki - Boston, MA; Ang Li - Boston, MA; Ashley Bigham - Columbus, OH; Cristina Goberna Pesudo - Madrid, Spain; Curtis Roth - Columbus, OH; Jesse LeCavalier - Toronto, Canada; John McMorrough - Ann Arbor, MI; Keith Krumwiede - San Francisco, CA; Laida Aguirre - Ann Arbor, MI; Leigha Dennis - New York, NY; Lluis Alexandre Casanovas Blanco - Barcelona, Spain; Michelle Chang - Boston, MA; Miles Gertler - Toronto, Canada; Mira Henry & Matthew Au (Current Interests) - Los Angeles, CA

A history of US involvement in late twentieth-century campaigns against global poverty and how they came to focus on women A War on Global Poverty provides a fresh account of US involvement in campaigns to end global poverty in the 1970s and 1980s. From the decline of modernization programs to the rise of microcredit, Joanne Meyerowitz looks beyond familiar histories of development and explains why antipoverty programs increasingly focused on women as the deserving poor. When the United States joined the war on global poverty, economists, policymakers, and activists asked how to change a world in which millions lived in need. Moved to the left by socialists, social democrats, and religious humanists, they rejected the notion that economic growth would trickle down to the poor, and they proposed programs to redress inequities between and within nations. In an emerging "women in development" movement, they positioned women as economic actors who could help lift families and nations out of destitution. In the more conservative 1980s, the war on global poverty turned decisively toward market-based projects in the private sector. Development experts and antipoverty advocates recast women as entrepreneurs and imagined microcredit-with its tiny loans-as a grassroots solution. Meyerowitz shows that at the very moment when the overextension of credit left poorer nations bankrupt, loans to impoverished women came to replace more ambitious proposals that aimed at redistribution. Based on a wealth of sources, A War on Global Poverty looks at a critical transformation in antipoverty efforts in the late twentieth century and points to its legacies today.

This report reviews the impact of trade facilitation initiatives in Asia and the Pacific since the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began and discusses how to increase supply chain resilience. Supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic have underscored the need for digital and paperless trade procedures. A special chapter examines the pandemic's impact on the supply chains of critical goods such as vaccines, personal protective equipment, and food, and provides policy suggestions for enhancing supply chain resilience and trade facilitation. This is the third biennial progress report on trade facilitation implementation in Asia and the Pacific jointly prepared by the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

This publication analyzes the Product-Specific Rules of Origin (PSRO) of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and other free trade agreements and proposes policy options. The report compares RCEP with the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It looks at the main rules of origin provisions of the three free trade agreements and discusses differences and similarities in how they were drafted. The study compares the stringency and leniency of RCEP PSRO with that of the other agreements and identifies where PSRO among the three are converging. Its findings provide the basis for policy recommendations to leverage RCEP to simplify rules of origin across Asia and the Pacific.

This guidance note provides insights on enhancing trade facilitation to strengthen responses to the current pandemic and future health emergencies. COVID-19 has highlighted the need for new investments and reforms to prepare for future pandemics and other crises. Timely, accurate information is required to support national and international responses. This guidance note aims to help build a shared framework for understanding trade facilitation and border health issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses effective manufacturing supply chains and equal vaccine distribution, the efficient flow of vaccines and medical goods across borders, and funding modalities for trade facilitation and regional public goods.

This publication explores how innovative financing and transformative knowledge solutions can help build sustainable and resilient food systems in Asia and the Pacific. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the food security and nutrition challenges in Asia and the Pacific, where various risks and fragilities have affected the food and agriculture sector. This publication explores how innovative financing and transformative knowledge solutions can help address the financing gaps and other challenges of food systems in the region. It emphasizes the need to enhance resilience and mitigate climate change by integrating the sustainable management of natural resources, nutritional considerations, and the economic dimensions of food supply chains.

Industry 4.0 systems use various sensor technologies many that include the integration of RFID. The intent of this book is to provide a sufficient discussion of RFID to enable readers with no prior knowledge to develop a basic understanding of the technology. RFID for the Supply Chain and Operations Professional discusses current applications and specific examples of RFID usage taken from a variety of industries. The appropriate coupling of RFID with other technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), IIoT technologies and robotics is discussed as well as an overview of the RFID implementation process. This book will help readers develop an understanding of the capability of the technology to increase an organization's customer responsiveness. In the third edition, the discussion and examples have been updated to reflect the rapid advancement in RFID technology. A new case study and new examples have been added along with updated discussions and projections about RFID technology.