This book presents high-quality original contributions on the fashion supply chain. A wide spectrum of application domains are covered, processing of big data coming from digital and social media channels, fashion new product development, fashion design, fashion marketing and communication strategy, business models and entrepreneurship, e-commerce and omni-channel management, corporate social responsibility, new materials for fashion product, wearable technologies. The contents are based on presentations delivered at IT4Fashion 2017, the 7th International Conference in Business Models and ICT Technologies for the Fashion Supply Chain, which was held in Florence, Italy, in April 2017, and at IT4Fashion 2018, the 8th edition of the same conference, which was held in Florence, Italy, in April 2018. This conference series represents a targeted response to the growing need for research that reports and debates supply chain business models and technologies applied to the fashion industry, with the aim of increasing knowledge in the area of product lifecycle management and supply chain management in that industry.

Risk analysis is crucial in stochastic supply chain models. Over the past few years, the pace has quickened for research attempting to explore risk analysis issues in supply chain management problems, while the majority of recent papers focus on conceptual framework or computational numerical analysis. Pioneered by Nobel laureate Markowitz in the 1950s, the mean-risk (MR) formulation became a fundamental theory for risk management in finance. Despite the significance and popularity of MR-related approaches in finance, their applications in studying multi-echelon supply chain management problems have only been seriously explored in recent years. While the MR approach has already been shown to be useful in conducting risk analysis in stochastic supply chain models, there is no comprehensive reference source that provides the state-of-the-art findings on this important model for supply chain management. Thus it is significant to have a book that reviews and extends the MR related works for supply chain risk analysis. This book is organized into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the topic, offers a timely review of various related areas, and explains why the MR approach is important for conducting supply chain risk analysis. Chapter 2 examines the single period inventory model with the mean-variance and mean-semi-deviation approaches. Extensive discussions on the efficient frontiers are also reported. Chapter 3 explores the infinite horizon multi-period inventory model with a mean-variance approach. Chapter 4 investigates the supply chain coordination problem with a versatile target sales rebate contract and a risk averse retailer possessing the mean-variance optimization objective. Chapter 5 concludes the book and discusses various promising future research directions and extensions. Every chapter can be taken as a self-contained article, and the notation within each chapter is consistently employed.

Straight to the Bottom Line will enable senior corporate executives to turn the enormous top-line and bottom-line potential of supply chain and procurement into reality. Key Features: Provides a clear understanding of the performance improvement opportunities, and what is at stake if these opportunities are overlooked, written by and for senior corporate executives Outlines a powerful and logical approach for assessing the state-of-the-art in their organization Offers ways to estimate the specific opportunities related to implementing a change in strategy and practices Details a comprehensive framework for organizing the transformation plan, across multiple dimensions Gives advice on which areas to focus on first, in order to build and ensure success WAV offers free downloadable resources such as a presentation detailing how modern supply management can improve ROIC and a lost opportunity calculator to quantify the impact of ""maverick buying"" - available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center

This book provides a detailed overview of various parameters/factors involved in inventory analysis. It especially focuses on the assessment and modeling of basic inventory parameters, namely demand, procurement cost, cycle time, ordering cost, inventory carrying cost, inventory stock, stock out level, and stock out cost. In the context of economic lot size, it provides equations related to the optimum values. It also discusses why the optimum lot size and optimum total relevant cost are considered to be key decision variables, and uses numerous examples to explain each of these inventory parameters separately. Lastly, it provides detailed information on parameter estimation for different sectors/products. Written in a simple and lucid style, it offers a valuable resource for a broad readership, especially Master of Business Administration (MBA) students.

Due to globalization and internationalization of agri-food production, the arena of competition and competitive advantage is moving from individual firms operating on spot markets towards supply chains and networks. Therefore, coordination between firms within the chain becomes more important. Topics like costs, efficiency, risk and investment analysis have received little empirical attention within chain and network research. Nonetheless, these performance measures are of vital importance for continuity of individual companies, chains and networks. This book aims at offering a coherent view on this matter by discussing the possibilities and limitations of quantifying performance, risks and investments in the agri-food chain. A wide variety of approaches from different economic disciplines was used to analyse the complex systems of agri-food supply chains and develop appropriate models for management decision support.

The Digital Transformation of Supply Chain Management offers a roadmap to all areas of supply chain management, with the idea of ecosystem as a center of gravity. The book describes the impact of Internet-driven global information and communication systems in enhancing supply chain management processes. It analyzes six building blocks of supply chain management, including consumer focus and demand, resource and capacity management, procurement and purchasing, inventory management, operation management, and distribution management. The book concludes by presenting the principal innovative solutions available now, or in the future, for managing and increasing the efficiency of supply chains. As supply chains are evolving toward an ecosystem that incorporates a wide range of digital technologies such as the cloud, big data, the Industrial Internet of Services, 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many more, this book is an ideal resource.

New technologies are revolutionising the way manufacturing and supply chain management are implemented. These changes are delivering manufacturing firms the competitive advantage of a highly flexible and responsive supply chain and manufacturing system to ensure that they meet the high expectations of their customers, who, in today's economy, demand absolutely the best service, price, delivery time and product quality.
To make e-manufacturing and supply chain technologies effective, integration is needed between various, often disparate systems. To understand why this is such an issue, one needs to understand what the different systems or system components do, their objectives, their specific focus areas and how they interact with other systems. It is also required to understand how these systems evolved to their current state, as the concepts used during the early development of systems and technology tend to remain in place throughout the life-cycle of the systems/technology.
This book explores various standards, concepts and techniques used over the years to model systems and hierarchies in order to understand where they fit into the organization and supply chain. It looks at the specific system components and the ways in which they can be designed and graphically depicted for easy understanding by both information technology (IT) and non-IT personnel.
Without a good implementation philosophy, very few systems add any real benefit to an organization, and for this reason the ways in which systems are implemented and installation projects managed are also explored and recommendations are made as to possible methods that have proven successful in the past. The human factor and how that impacts on system success are also addressed, as is the motivation for system investment and subsequent benefit measurement processes.
Finally, the vendor/user supply/demand within the e-manufacturing domain is explored and a method is put forward that enables the reduction of vendor bias during the vendor selection process.
The objective of this book is to provide the reader with a good understanding regarding the four critical factors (business/physical processes, systems supporting the processes, company personnel and company/personal performance measures) that influence the success of any e-manufacturing implementation, and the synchronization required between these factors.
. Discover how to implement the flexible and responsive supply chain and manufacturing execution systems required for competitive and customer-focused manufacturing
. Build a working knowledge of the latest plant automation, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and supply chain management (SCM) design techniques
. Gain a fuller understanding of the four critical factors (business and physical processes, systems supporting the processes, company personnel, performance measurement) that influence the success of any e-manufacturing implementation, and how to evaluate and optimize all four factors"

This book deals with collaborative planning, an approach to supply chain planning which aims to coordinate planning tasks of independent supply chain partners while respecting their local decision authority. It gives an introduction to collaborative planning, shows how it is embedded in the broader subject matter of supply chain management, and reviews findings of related literature. At its core, it provides a step-by-step description of a negotiation-based, practice-oriented approach to collaborative planning at the medium-term level of master planning between two supply-chain partners, a supplier and a single customer. Subsequently, this basic concept is extended to cover supply chains with multiple partners and planning on a rolling basis. Implications of collaborative planning on supply contracts are sketched out, and incentives for cooperative behavior by the supply-chain partners are analyzed by applying concepts of game theory.

This book maps the latest developments in public procurement of innovation policy in various contexts and analyzes the evolution and development of the various policy solutions in broader institutional contexts. In doing so, it addresses significant theoretical and practical gaps: On the one hand, there is an emerging interest in public procurement as a policy tool for spurring innovation; yet on the other hand, the current theory, with some notable exceptions, is guided and often constrained by historical applications, above all in the defence industries. By carefully examining the cases of eleven countries, the book points to the existence of much more nuanced public procurement on the innovation policy landscape than has been acknowledged in the academic and policy debates to date.

In February 2002, the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) De partment at the University of Florida hosted a National Science Founda tion Workshop on Collaboration and Negotiation in Supply Chain Man agement and E Commerce. This workshop focused on characterizing the challenges facing leading edge firms in supply chain management and electronic commerce, and identifying research opportunities for de veloping new technological and decision support capabilities sought by industry. The audience included practitioners in the areas of supply chain management and E Commerce, as well as academic researchers working in these areas. The workshop provided a unique setting that has facilitated ongoing dialog between academic researchers and industry practitioners. This book codifies many of the important themes and issues around which the workshop discussions centered. The editors of this book, all faculty members in the ISE Department at the University of Florida, also served as the workshop's coordinators. In addition to workshop participants, we also invited contributions from leading academics and practitioners who were not able to attend. As a result, the chapters herein represent a collection of research contributions, monographs, and case studies from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints. On the aca demic side alone, chapter authors include faculty members in supply chain and operations management, marketing, industrial engineering, economics, computer science, civil and environmental engineering, and building construction departments.

In recent years, supply chain planning has emerged as one of the most challenging problems in the industry. As a consequence, the planning focus is shifting from the management of plant-speci?c operations to a holistic view of the various logistics and productionstages, that is an approach in which suppliers, productionplants and customers are considered as constituents of an integrated network. A major dr- ing force behind this development lies in the globalization of the world economy, which has facilitated the co-operation between different partners working together in world-wide logistics networks. Hence, considerable cost savings can be gained from optimizing the structure and the operations of complex supply networks li- ing plants, suppliers, distribution centres and customers. Consequently, to improve the performance of the entire logistic chain, more sophisticated planning systems and more effective decision support are needed. Clearly, successful applications of supply chain management have driven the development of advanced planning systems (APS), which are concerned with s- porting decision-making activities at the strategic, tactical and operational decision level. These software packages basically rely on the application of quantitative methods, which are used to model the underlying complex decision problems c- sidering the limited availability of resources and the need to react on time to customer orders. The core module at the mid-term level of APS comprises op- ational supply chain planning. In many industries, productionstages are assigned to differentplantsand distribution centreshave been established at geographicallyd- persed locations.

Quantitative Methods in Supply Chain Management presents some of the most important methods and tools available for modeling and solving problems arising in the context of supply chain management. In the context of this book, "solving problems" usually means designing efficient algorithms for obtaining high-quality solutions. The first chapter is an extensive optimization review covering continuous unconstrained and constrained linear and nonlinear optimization algorithms, as well as dynamic programming and discrete optimization exact methods and heuristics. The second chapter presents time-series forecasting methods together with prediction market techniques for demand forecasting of new products and services. The third chapter details models and algorithms for planning and scheduling with an emphasis on production planning and personnel scheduling. The fourth chapter presents deterministic and stochastic models for inventory control with a detailed analysis on periodic review systems and algorithmic development for optimal control of such systems. The fifth chapter discusses models and algorithms for location/allocation problems arising in supply chain management, and transportation problems arising in distribution management in particular, such as the vehicle routing problem and others. The sixth and final chapter presents a short list of new trends in supply chain management with a discussion of the related challenges that each new trend might bring along in the immediate to near future. Overall, Quantitative Methods in Supply Chain Management may be of particular interest to students and researchers in the fields of supply chain management, operations management, operations research, industrial engineering, and computer science.

Those who have successfully managed product information for mass customization carefully avoid disclosing how these esoteric systems work in practice. This is the first book to provide a holistic recognition of the essential aspects of an IT-supported product configuration system. In doing so, it reveals the basic building blocks of these systems, how they support mass customization, how these systems are selected and implemented, what alternative options there are, and lastly, what the operational and strategic implications of these systems are.

Reinvent your supply chain from the outside in - leverage customer insight, heuristics and digital tools to meet rising expectations and adapt in a volatile world. Customers have become increasingly demanding, and the operating environment has become more turbulent and complex. Mature companies wishing to survive and thrive in the coming decades must transform themselves to become flexible and market responsive. They need to reconsider their traditional supply chains and find ways to increase the clockspeed of their operation and their decision making without creating more complexity for their staff and partners. But where to start this transformation journey? Most of the world's largest corporations have logistics networks and supply chains that have evolved over time, many based around systems that drive a 'one-size-fits-all' philosophy, which does not fit anymore. And most have not kept up with the changing cadence of their markets. This book describes the path to a different paradigm; where a set of tailored supply chains are used for in-built flexibility and adaption as the world changes, and where internal capabilities and digital capabilities are consciously aligned with the customers and strategies they serve. Transforming Supply Chains builds on John Gattorna's seminal Dynamic Alignment framework; and he and his long-term collaborator Deborah Ellis review the analytics and decision-making tools needed to be effective in the digital age. Case Studies of organisations that excel using the 'outside-in' paradigm that they describe are scattered throughout the book; as are a series of prompts to help 'kick start your thinking' about your own transformation path. Transforming Supply Chains is your guide to designing supply chains that fit, and adapt, and bring competitive advantage - whatever your business and whoever your customers.

The aim of the book is to present the emerging environmental issues in organization and management of complex supply chains. The book includes set of solutions which show different stakeholders' viewpoints on sustainability. The scope of book takes into consideration how the emerging environmental regulation might be transformed into business practices. Therefore, the authors present the innovative approach to eco-friendly organization and coordination of logistics processes and supply chain configuration. A broad scope of practical solutions from different countries and industries is provided

The subject of this book is supply chain logistics planning optimization under multiple uncertainties, the key issue in supply chain management. Focusing on the strategic-alliance three-level supply chain, the model of supply chain logistics planning was established in terms of the market prices and the market requirements as random variables of manufactured goods with random expected value programming theory, and the hybrid intelligence algorithm solution model was designed. Aiming at the decentralized control supply chain, in which the nodes were unlimited expansion, the chance-constrained stochastic programming model was created in order to obtain optimal decision-making at a certain confidence level. In addition, the hybrid intelligence algorithm model was designed to solve the problem of supply chain logistics planning with the prices of the raw-materials supply market of the upstream enterprises and the prices of market demand for products of the downstream enterprises as random variables in the supply chain unit. Aimed at the three-stage mixed control supply chain, a logistics planning model was designed using fuzzy random programming theory with customer demand as fuzzy random variables and a hybrid intelligence algorithm solution was created. The research has significance both in theory and practice. Its theoretical significance is that the research can complement and perfect existing supply chain planning in terms of quantification. Its practical significance is that the results will guide companies in supply chain logistics planning in the uncertain environment.

'Securing Web Services' investigates the security-related specifications that encompass message level security, transactions, and identity management.

Our rapidly changing world has forced business practitioners, in corporation with academic researchers, to respond quickly and develop effective solution methodologies and techniques to handle new challenges in supply chain systems. Supply Chain Optimization, Management and Integration: Emerging Applications presents readers with a rich collection of ideas from researchers who are bridging the gap between the latest in information technology and supply chain management. This book includes theoretical, analytical, and empirical research, comprehensive reviews of relevant research, and case studies of effective applications in the field of SCM. The use of new technologies, methods, and techniques are emphasized by those who have worked with supply chain management across the world for those in the field of information systems.

The world of logistics has considerably changed due to globalization, modern information technology, and especially increasing ecological awareness. Large Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems are developing to global logistic networks. This book reflects major trends of the recent decade in SCM and, additionally, presents ideas and visions for logistic networks of the 21st century. Among the various aspects of SCM, emphasis is placed on reverse logistics: closing the loop of a supply chain by integrating waste materials into logistic management decisions.  

The book provides an introduction to logistics and supply chain management and the application of evolutionary computation, focusing on specific fields related to supply chain issues, from strategic sourcing decisions, and production planning and control to inventory to logistics and its application using evolutionary / heuristics techniques. Bridging the gap between management research, decision-making and computer analysis, this interdisciplinary book features state-of-the-art descriptions of the corresponding problems and advanced methods for solving them.

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.

Supply Chain Optimization captures the latest results in a segment of current research activity in supply chain management. This research area focuses on applying optimization techniques to supply chain management problems. The research papers that make up the volume provide a snapshot of state-of-the-art optimization methods within the field. This book presents rigorous modelling approaches for supply chain operations problems with a goal of improving supply chain performance (or the performance of some segment thereof). It contains high-quality works from leading researchers in the field whose expertise fits within this scope. The book provides a diverse blend of research topics and novel modelling and solution approaches for difficult classes of supply chain operations, planning, and design problems.

CAO is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized weapons available to retailers today. International consultant Barbara Anderson makes clear that in only a limited sense does CAO replace manual ordering. In its full sense it is much more--the optimization of manufacturer, supplier, and retailer distribution to the retail store-- based on consumer and store data and corporate policy. Anderson thus provides a framework and checklist for implementing CAO, and understanding of key terminology, solutions to likely problems, and ways to make CAO implementation successful, and in doing so she covers the full spectrum of retailing. A readable, easily grasped, comprehensive, unique book for retailing management and for their colleagues teaching it in colleges and universities.

Anderson points out that CAO is not an off-the-shelf system but an ongoing project, each phase with its own unique set of benefits and cost justification. Retail systems must support a vision where a product may bypass the store on the way to the consumer, or even the distribution center on the way to the stores. Consumers have a wide range of choices, not only of where to shop, but how to shop, and this demands ever greater levels of service. CAO systems help assure that the correct product is available at the store, that it can be located throughout the supply chain, and that it can be moved easily from any location. In CAO, all levels of operation work with real-time information, using decision-making tools that react and learn from new information. Her book thus shows there is no one right system, product, or approach for successful CAO. It's too big a leap to make in one step but consists of modules and functions that can grow in sophistication over time, and that not all retailers nor all categories within one retailer will use the same methods for forecasting and ordering. She also shows that the distinct separation of replenishment product from planning product is artifically imposed and that the separation of head-quarters from stores is also artificial. Indeed, integration does not mean the integration of separate systems; rather, of business functions themselves. Readers will thus get not only a knowledgeable discussion of what CAO should be, what it is and how it works, but an immediately useful understanding of how to make it work in their own companies.

Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) are a massive subset of the healthcare industry that negotiate lower costs for healthcare supplies by buying for several hospitals at once. "Group Purchasing Organizations" provides an analysis and critique of this industry.

This book provides a systematic framework for effectively creating value through engineering in global business networks, and contributes to an increasingly important branch of engineering operations. By updating the traditional disciplines of engineering and operations management and addressing challenges and opportunities in building global network capabilities, this study offers a contemporary guide for developing effective industrial policies to enhance the global competitiveness of engineering sectors, which will be extremely useful to engineering companies and policy-makers. Themes discussed include main trends and driving forces, state-of-the-art knowledge in relevant subject areas, new technologies and leading practice. This timely book will help researchers, managers and students to gain an overall understanding of the pioneering research occurring in this field and it will enable companies to benefit from global engineering networks.