Wholesale Distributors in the knowledge-based lines of trade (Electrical, Automation, Fluid Power, Power Transmission, Industrial Mill Supplies, Plumbing and Heating and other) face a tough decision. As market forces, demographics, alternative channels and the internet push against their half-century old model of value-added services wrapped into margins, wholesale distributors must change revenue model or perish. This manifesto brilliantly outlines the thoughts of Distribution Expert Frank Hurtte on the need for modifying current strategies.

Avoid having too little or too much stock on hand with this guide to inventory management and optimization with SAP ERP! Start by managing the stock you have through replenishment, goods issue, goods receipt, and internal transfers. Then plan for and optimize your future by avoiding bottlenecks, setting lead times, using simulations, and more. Finally, evaluate your operations using standard reports, the MRP Monitor, and KPIs. Keep your stock levels just right! Key Inventory Processes: Understand essential business processes like good receipt, goods issue, internal stock transfer, reservations, and using materials documents. Then map these processes to their specific master data settings like service levels and lot size. Planning and Optimization: Learn how the entire supply chain influences inventory planning, and jump into methods and tools for inventory optimization including SAP ERP Add-On tools for simulations and inventory cockpits. Monitoring, Reporting, and Analysis: Employ Logistics Information Systems methods to control and monitor inventory, use the MRP Monitor for inventory analysis, and calculate key indicators to measure inventory performance. Highlights: Inventory management Inventory optimization Supply chain management Goods receipt/goods issue (GR/GI) Stock transfer SAP ERP Add-Ons Lot size Demand planning Material requirements planning (MRP) MRP Monitor Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Macrologistics is a strategic view of logistics as a production factor on national scales to support a shift towards sustainability. The book details logistics' evolution from a functional discipline to a value chain optimiser and, ultimately, an enabler of sustainability, including the evolution of metrics to support this shift. Macrologistics instrumentation involves striving towards the lowest total cost of ownership for national economies where, to improve decision-making, these costs should ultimately include the societal and ecological costs incurred due to logistics activities.

From Logistics Strategy To Macrologistics represents macrologistics research outputs for a number of developing economies, identifying distinctive macrologistics policy and infrastructure investments themes to address national logistics challenges in developing economies. The book culminates in a discussion on the potential future role of logistics to support the shift to a more sustainable society, where an acceptance of a degrowth paradigm might be required, and even advisable, for a more secure, fulfilling future. Logistics (and economics) scholars, researchers and practitioners should steer their work towards contributing to the development of an ecologically sustainable society, where resources and returns are shared widely, sustainably and equitably.

"The Logistics Handbook" encompasses all of the latest advances in warehousing and distribution. It provides invaluable "how to" problem-solving tools and techniques for all the ever-increasing logistical problems managers face -- making it the most complete and authoritative handbook to date.

Special features include:

* The most in-depth coverage of a wide range of topics, including information systems, benchmarking, and environmental issues

* Contributions found nowhere else from the leading executives, consultants, and academics in the field, such as C. John Langley, James Heskett, and David Anderson

* State of the art graphics

* Information-packed appendixes of logistics publications and organizations

This all-inclusive reference will enable the next generation of managers to thoroughly integrate their logistics operations at all levels -- strategic, structural, functional, and implementation -- into a comprehensive logistics strategy.

This book on sustainable business is for advanced business education students as well as practicing managers and executives interested in sustainability or government relations. Sustainability is a global business megatrend with ramifications across all functional areas of business, from finance to supply chains. This book addresses an under-developed topic in the field, specifically, the roles of legal compliance, lobbying, and corporate governance mechanisms as barriers to, and opportunities for, sustainable business. Written by an expert in sustainable law and policy, the book offers concise and accessible discussions of the legal frameworks relevant to sustainable enterprise and perspectives on the sustainable use of corporate legal resources. Part I: Legal Compliance explains the relevant operational requirements of the laws affecting sustainability in the business arenas of supply chain management, marketing, and operations management. Part II: Lobbying explains the legacy of the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on the role of corporations in the election process. Additionally, Part II explains how corporations can influence the process for regulatory rulemaking. Part III: Corporate Governance explains the role of the C-suite and shareholders in shaping the sustainability policy of large organizations

Using numerous real-life examples from global technology corporations, and with a foreword from Tim Curran the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Technology Distribution Council, Technology Distribution Channels explores the chain that makes technology products and services available for market and explains how to make the most of each step of the process. By defining the role and significance of the various partners involved, including distributors, wholesalers and final-tier channel players, it provides a clear understanding of the entire go-to-market process, whilst also explaining channel partners' business models and how to engage with them for effective market access. Technology Distribution Channels covers both the tactical and strategic dimensions of channel economics as well as containing information on accessing and servicing markets and customers, controlling brands, integrating web and online channels, building the value proposition and creating differentiation. As the only approved text book for the Global Technology Distribution Council's Accreditations, Technology Distribution Channels contains expert guidance for both the Certificate and the Diploma programs. Comprehensive and clear, Technology Distribution Channels provides readers with the knowledge needed to improve their business model to ensure maximum market exposure and successful product delivery.

The green or environmental sustainability movement has taken hold throughout the world. Its staying power is confirmed by that fact that environmental emphasis did not decrease during the recent global recession, but rather increased. Organizations see that greater environmental emphasis in their product and service offerings not only helps their image, but also may help reduce inefficiency, waste and corresponding cost. 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. Sourcing to support an organizations green initiatives begins in the conception stage of new product development. Just as organizations consider the features that their products will provide to customers, they should also consider the environmental footprint of their products and services, and design them accordingly. Ideally, an environmentally sound product should be a goal of product design and suppliers should be made aware of that goal up front. Their continued role as a supplier may depend on their ability to meet the criteria set by the developer and they may need to retool for green in order to retain business. This book begins with an introduction to the idea of sustainability and to the concept of what it means to source to support organizations green initiatives, and why this is important from a holistic, life cycle perspective. The initial chapters will also provide a point of view of how green sourcing fits into the organizations 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 viewpoint on how organizations can encourage and support their suppliers in pursuing green initiatives, and what types of initiatives provide a good starting point. The final chapters of the book will present a view on end-of-life product issues and how they relate to green sourcing, and how the organizations transportation decisions and choices can support green sourcing and the overall goal of the organization to reduce its environmental footprint

As we enter the 21st Century, we find ourselves faced by two major developments. The first is emergence of the supply chain as a critical strategic and tactical weapon. As has been pointed out by many researchers, with the emergence of the supply chain, the unit of competition has shifted from the firm to the supply chain. However, with the advent of the supply chain, it is important to recognize that we have to view strategic objectives within a context that stresses not simply the internal operations of the firm but also the elements of the supply chain - elements that include the supplier base, customers, logistics linkages, and relationships, both visible and virtual. We are now coming to realize that the supply chain is no stronger than its weakest link. The second development is that of sustainability. This is more than simply being environmentally responsible. Rather, it is overall sustainability as measured in terms of the firm's ability to reduce waste, improve profitability, generating strategic competitive advantages, and ensure that it treats its employees well. Sustainability is increasingly becoming at a minimum an expectation and a requirement for doing business (i.e., an order qualifier) and under many conditions something that differentiates firms and makes them more attractive to potential critical consumers (i.e., an order winner). These two developments, while often treated as separate entities, are interrelated. It is this interrelationship that forms the major focus and thrust of this book. This book presents the reader with an integrated, business oriented treatment of sustainable supply chain management that explores why it is no longer enough for a firm to focus on sustainability within the four walls of the firm. Rather, in today's environment, sustainability must involve the supply chain in a deliberate and integrated fashion. To succeed with sustainability, a firm must ensure that this outcome is not only present within the firm but is also present within the supply chain. As the book will show, the market and consumers will punish those firms that promise sustainability but are not able to deliver on this promise because of problems in the supply chain.

This book covers the area of unpaced, unbalanced production lines. You will find an up-to-date discussion of how designing these lines can be made more efficient by taking advantage of inherent imbalance, for example operators who work at different speeds - a concept which has traditionally been seen as an obstacle to efficient production. A series of experiments are presented to illustrate the issues involved in improving performance through production line imbalance. This area is of interest to postgraduate and executive level students interested in the area of production, and to managers of manual or semi-automated production lines who are interested in innovative approaches to line design. In this book you will find some surprisingly easy ways to improve performance with low or zero costs. Emphasis is placed on reducing the amount of time production lines lie idle, and on reducing work in process. This is a timely contribution to the field when managers are casting around for new ways to cut waste and reduce their use of natural resources.

Using this book, you will learn about numerous ideas for income sources, expense reduction, employee productivity improvement, enhanced space utilization, measurement techniques and other ideas that, if applied, will justify the book purchase many times over

The "Top 25 Logistics / Distribution KPIs of 2011-2012" report provides insights into the state of logistics and distribution performance measurement today by listing and analyzing the most visited KPIs for this industry on smartKPIs.com in 2011. In addition to KPI names, it contains a detailed description of each KPI, in the standard smartKPIs.com KPI documentation format, that includes fields such as: definition, purpose, calculation, limitation, overall notes and additional resources. This product is part of the "Top KPIs of 2011-2012" series of reports and a result of the research program conducted by the analysts of smartKPIs.com in the area of integrated performance management and measurement. smartKPIs.com hosts the largest catalogue of thoroughly documented KPI examples, representing an excellent platform for research and dissemination of insights on KPIs and related topics. The hundreds of thousands of visits to smartKPIs.com and the thousands of KPIs visited, bookmarked and rated by members of this online community in 2011 provided a rich data set, which combined with further analysis from the editorial team, formed the basis of these research reports.

Developing more brands to expand your business Brands Designs for making brands A valuable way of expanding business includes by developing more brands, such experience is proved by today's well- known companies in the world as automobile makers and other fields. A significant outcome of sales will come out basing on a project of creating more brands for commodities to carry out in business of your company. A plan of classification on commodities by brands is developed by the author for reference: 1. "a" brand: for the best quality. 2. "b" brand: for the standard quality. 3. "c" brand: for cheap quality and cheap pricing. 4. "d" brand: for domestic tradition. 5. "e" brand: for international market. 6. "f " brand: for specific commodity in a marketplace of America, Europe, Asia or other. 7. "g" brand: for specific commodity in a country or group of countries. 8. "h" brand: for any workable one(s). A reader may use one of designs in the book to be modified and added a name to it to build a brand of your own.

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.

In today's competitive global economy, a firm's market position and bottom-line financial performance is closely linked to its supply chain performance. All too often considerable managerial resources are directed towards planning activities and processes with little in the way of tangible results and outcomes. What supply chain executives require is the know-how to efficiently and effectively direct their planning activities so that the results lead to better business decisions from the long-term down to day-to-day operations. In this book, we present proven, practical management frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning in private industry. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory deployment decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. The book is intended for supply chain managers and executives in private industry and the public sector, as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Practitioners will obtain valuable new insights and examples of implementable frameworks and methods for managing their supply chain functions and organizations. Students will develop an understanding of leading edge, real world approaches for supply chain strategic planning and scheduling, decision support, project development and selection, performance measurement and many other key activities.

The quality and effectiveness of decisions made within an organization and its supply chain depend upon the accuracy and timeliness of the information upon which they are based. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that can provide more accurate information in near real time and thus increase the quality and timeliness of decisions based on that information. RFID systems are currently in use in areas such as inventory management, process control, asset tracking and monitoring, and retail point of sale. Organizations which appropriately incorporate RFID into their operations and information management systems have increased their agility, effectiveness, and efficiency resulting in organizational growth and increased profitability. The appropriate utilization of RFID allows organizations to become more agile resulting in their ability to respond to customers more efficiently and effectively. Technology by itself does not result in improvements and RFID is no exception. RFID is not a solution for every problem. However, when coupled with other appropriate technologies to address an appropriate objective, RFID can offer a variety of benefits to businesses. The proper integration into the firm's competitive plans and processes, and the ability to leverage those technologies for competitive advantage results in increased performance for organizations. 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. The book 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 GPS, ERP, 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.

The book can be viewed from the perspective of a medium to large firm's journey towards sustainability. A firm that wants to be sustainable considers the triple bottom line when making decisions, i.e., the firm takes into account economic (profit), environmental (planet), and social (people) impacts when making decisions. By focusing on the triple bottom line (3Ps), the firm ensures a steady supply of inputs such as raw materials and labor indefinitely. The first step towards sustainability is aimed at reducing waste in operations (mainly production), with the help of such tools as lean and six-sigma. The firm then performs a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) for each of its main products and processes. LCA is a methodology designed to assess the environmental impact (e.g., energy consumption) of a product or process, from raw material extraction to production (in its different stages), packaging, distribution, sales, consumer use, and end-of-life disposal. With a better understanding of the major impacts, the firm can then target actions designed to reduce the firm's environmental impact (which in most cases also improves the economic bottom line), that is, the firm aims to be eco-efficient. The final step in the journey towards sustainability, which is the ultimate goal, is to close the loop. To close the loop, the firm starts by designing products for multiple life cycles (as in design for remanufacturing), or products designed according to a "cradle-to-cradle" philosophy that ensures ease of disassembly and 100% recyclability (up-cycling as opposed to down-cycling).