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.

This book focuses on sustainability in fashion retail, which is fast becoming the pivot point of future fashion retail strategies. Chapters in the book provide theoretical and practical insight on how going green may positively influence the strategy of fashion retailers and marketers, who have to react to the changing society and customer needs. Structured in four main parts, and based on distinct research questions, readers will be able to dig deep into the individual levers for possible adaptions. It thus provides a solid understanding on how to integrate green aspects into any fashion retailers business model.

Sharing accurate and timely supply and demand information throughout a supply chain can yield significant performance improvements to all members of the supply chain. Despite the benefits, many firms are reluctant to share information with their supply chain partners due to an unequal distribution of risks, costs, and benefits among the partners. Thus, incentive mechanisms must be in place to induce communication, cooperation, and collaboration among all members of a supply chain. The issue of Information exchange/sharing has been examined by various researchers over the last 15-20 years. However, there is no research book that compiles various approaches, analyses, key implications, as well as future development of this area. This book will serve as a handbook for researchers who are interested in learning the state of the art of the line of research in this area and explore open research topics in this area. Contributors, all leading researchers, have committed to delivering 18 chapters, broken into four distinct sections covering the Value of Information Sharing, Contracting and Information, Information Signaling, and Incentives for Information Sharing.

This work brings together some of the most up to date research in the application of operations research and mathematical modeling te- niques to problems arising in supply chain management and e-Commerce. While research in the broad area of supply chain management enc- passes a wide range of topics and methodologies, we believe this book provides a good snapshot of current quantitative modeling approaches, issues, and trends within the field. Each chapter is a self-contained study of a timely and relevant research problem in supply chain mana- ment. The individual works place a heavy emphasis on the application of modeling techniques to real world management problems. In many instances, the actual results from applying these techniques in practice are highlighted. In addition, each chapter provides important mana- rial insights that apply to general supply chain management practice. The book is divided into three parts. The first part contains ch- ters that address the new and rapidly growing role of the internet and e-Commerce in supply chain management. Topics include e-Business applications and potentials; customer service issues in the presence of multiple sales channels, varying from purely Internet-based to traditional physical outlets; and risk management issues in e-Business in B2B m- kets.

In the 21st century, supply chain operations and relationships among supply chain partners have become highly challenging, necessitating new approaches, e.g., the development of new models. Supply Chain Strategies, Issues and Models discusses supply chain issues and models with examples from actual industrial cases. Expert authors with a wide spectrum of knowledge working in various areas of supply chain management from various geographical locations offer refreshing, novel and insightful ideas and address possible solutions using established theories and models. Supply Chain Strategies, Issues and Models features studies that have used mathematical modeling, statistical analyses and also descriptive qualitative studies. The chapters cover many relevant themes related to supply chains and logistics including supply chain complexity, information sharing, quality (six sigma), electronic Kanbans, inventory models, scheduling, purchasing and contracts. To facilitate easy reading, the chapters that deal with supply chain related issues are first, followed by studies on inventory, scheduling, purchasing and logistics. This book can be used as a useful resource of supply chain management by academics, students and practitioners. This book can serve as a helping tool in managerial decision making for investments in collaboration and information exchange to improve forecasts, scheduling and inventory management, and for supply chain managers to leverage product and process complexities into competitive advantage. Some interesting mathematical models can appeal to students and researchers interested in modeling the impact of information sharing in supply chains.

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.

Channel coordination is a core subject of supply chain management. Over the past decade, much research effort has been devoted to exploring the detailed mechanisms for achieving supply chain coordination under uncertainty, generating many fruitful analytical and empirical results. Despite the abundance of research results, there is an absence of a comprehensive reference source that provides state-of-the-art findings on both theoretical and applied research on the subject. In addition, with the advance of knowledge and technologies, many new topics on supply chain coordination under uncertainty have appeared in recent years. This handbook extensively examines supply chain coordination challenges with a focal point on discovering innovative measures that can help tackle the existing and emerging challenges. The book is organized into five parts, which include chapters on innovative analytical models for coordination, channel power and bargaining, technological advancements and applications, empirical analysis, cases studies and review. This handbook provides new empirical and analytical results with precious insights, which will not only help supply chain agents to understand more about the latest measures for supply chain coordination under uncertainty, but also help practitioners and researchers to know how to improve supply chain performance based on innovative methods.

This book emphasizes three key messages:
Value: While the traditional approaches to supply chain management have favoured cost minimalization, the authors believe that SCM is a value enabler with strategic decisions in supply chain design leading to value creation and tactical decisions in supply chain coordination leading to value capture.
Alignment: While trust-based collaborative practices are the ultimate goal, adequate economic incentives should be designed to ensure the much needed alignment.
Sustainability: Supply chain design should be viewed as a dynamic process rather than a set of activities held together by low transaction costs.

This book gives unique insights into the Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM) of world-leading companies. Aims, methods, instruments as well as resources and budgets in SCEM are discussed. The book offers real case studies from Top 100 companies. The reader will gain a strong understanding of the way to deal with problems along the supply chain and how to avoid them. SCEM allows timelines to be met with decreased cost and risks.

The third-party logistics industry is a growing field. Relationships between third-party logistics providers and customer firms demand the creation of logistics contract where the necessary business and legal agreements are stipulated. Until now, the creation and negotiation of these agreements have been based on custom. This is the first practical handbook to support managers in the creation and negotiation of logistics contracts from the legal and economic perspective. The book provides the general framework and an extensive analysis of the content, structure and best practices of logistics contracts.

The Digital Supply Chain is a thorough investigation of the underpinning technologies, systems, platforms and models that enable the design, management, and control of digitally connected supply chains. The book examines the origin, emergence and building blocks of the Digital Supply Chain, showing how and where the virtual and physical supply chain worlds interact. It reviews the enabling technologies that underpin digitally controlled supply chains and examines how the discipline of supply chain management is affected by enhanced digital connectivity, discussing purchasing and procurement, supply chain traceability, performance management, and supply chain cyber security. The book provides a rich set of cases on current digital practices and challenges across a range of industrial and business sectors including the retail, textiles and clothing, the automotive industry, food, shipping and international logistics, and SMEs. It concludes with research frontiers, discussing network science for supply chain analysis, challenges in Blockchain applications and in digital supply chain surveillance, as well as the need to re-conceptualize supply chain strategies for digitally transformed supply chains.

In a context of global competition, the optimization of logistics systems is inescapable. Logistics Systems: Design and Optimization falls within this perspective and presents twelve chapters that well illustrate the variety and the complexity of logistics activities. Each chapter is written by recognized researchers who have been commissioned to survey a specific topic or emerging area of logistics. The first chapter, by Riopel, Langevin, and Campbell, develops a framework for the entire book. It classifies logistics decisions and highlights the relevant linkages to logistics decisions. The intricacy of these linkages demonstrates how thoroughly the decisions are interrelated and underscores the complexity of managing logistics activities. Each of the chapters focus on quantitative methods for the design and optimization of logistics systems.

Sustainable Operations Management applies the issues of sustainability to all strategic decisions of operations: capacity management, supply network, process technology, and development and organisation. This book extends the existing literature of operations management that for years has been paramount in creating economic value with little consideration of environment and social dimensions. Whilst based on robust theoretical frameworks, some developed by its own authors, the book is enriched by international case studies and real-world illustrations throughout, to demonstrate how this theory translates to practice. Each chapter begins with learning objectives and ends with a summary, activity, and questions for discussion. Readers will gain a comprehensive and in-depth knowledge on how to manage operations for sustainability. They will learn the ways to formulate a sustainable operations strategy and the elements involved in managing tactical and operational activities to enhance sustainability performance over time. The book covers all aspects of the new business sustainability paradigm from an operations perspective, including sustainable development goals, the circular economy and digital transformation. With international agreements and national policies in place around themes such as climate change, ocean plastic pollution, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity, and zero landfill targets, this book will be a must for any university abiding to the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRIME). The text is suitable mostly for MSc and MBA students on sustainable supply chain and operations management modules as well as broader Operations Management courses, but it can also be used for final-year Undergraduate students as part of advanced operations management modules. Online resources include chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint slides and a test bank of questions.

This pioneering book on food study pursues an interdisciplinary approach to service science and the service engineering field. Further, it highlights a range of experiments conducted at actual business sites to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodologies and theories. In modern society, food study has become more complex, as it involves multiple fields of science. For instance, a long-lived society entails a number of problems for human beings. A balanced intake of nutrients is important for a healthy life, but in many cases, healthy food is not the most enjoyable. As such, it is important for the food industry to provide foods that are both tasty and wholesome, based on the sciences of gastronomy and nutrition. Conventional food study proceeds along the lines of a specific field such as nutrition, agriculture, or gastronomy, though it should be conducted in an interdisciplinary manner. This book covers multifaceted research on food study to respond to today's societal demands, based mainly on the natural and social sciences. It addresses a wide range of topics, including: food production management using mathematical modeling, operations research, and production engineering; evaluation of food products based on big data analysis; psychological experiments and ethnography; food products based on consumer behavior; organoleptic assessment and health improvement; design of physical dining environments using virtual reality, pedestrian debt recognition (human indoor position measuring), and observation of behavior. Reporting on and assessing many studies conducted at actual business locations, the book offers a unique and highly practical resource.

This is the first book entirely devoted to analyzing the "bullwhip effect." It examines in depth all the problems associated with the bullwhip effect, its consequences, and known tools to design well-suited supply chain management systems that can cope with it. International supply chains are a central topic in this book and analytical tools that permit handling the Bullwhip Effect for global supply chains are of primary importance. The book compares the various approaches for dealing with the increased variability that is at the heart of the Bullwhip Effect, all illustrated by real case studies.

In recent years, purchasing performance measurement have steadily gained in importance in theory and practice. Yet, in many cases, the focus still remains on cost items, especially savings. Moreover, reported performance ratios in purchasing are frequently called into question in terms of their amount and efficacy. Most of the time, there is no tie-in at all with staff compensations. To meet these and other challenges, this book presents a holistic approach for purchasing performance measurement and the incentive systems associated with it. The following topics are dealt with in detail: * Purchasing performance measurement on the level of commodity groups and the procurement organization * Supplier evaluation and performance measurement on the level of the buyer-supplier relationship * Comprehensive systems for purchasing performance measurement, such as the procurement value added and the purchasing balanced scorecard * Performance-oriented incentive systems and bonus payments for buyers, procurement organizations and suppliers Readers are thus provided with comprehensive guidelines for the implementation and realization of sustained performance measurement and incentivization in purchasing.

This insightful research review discusses some of the most influential papers in the economics field of global value chains. Focusing on globalization, fragmentation and coordination of production across geographical as well as enterprise boundaries. It pays particularly close attention to how businesses in developing countries are incorporated into global production and distribution networks. The review analyses many of the texts that framed the global value chain approach together with in-depth case-studies of particular sectors and policy-oriented research concerned with reducing poverty and accelerating growth in poorer countries. This review would be of great interest to students and researchers working in the fields of globalisation, geography and international business.

The e-business environment has brought about a new kind of competition. Instead of the traditional mode of firms competing against firms, we now have supply chains competing against supply chains. ""Supply Chain Management: Issues in the New Era of Collaboration and Competition"" examines this new business landscape in background, touching on major issues of the supply chain, and readers the assets to obtain that important competitive advantage. ""Supply Chain Management: Issues in the New Era of Collaboration and Competition"" contributes to this interesting global phenomenon by collecting well-researched works that illuminate in SCM issues in the e-business environment.

The leading academic authorities contributing to this book have been involved in major studies carried out for international organisations, individual governments, and national trades' union organisations; in Vulnerable Workers they consider the growth of job insecurity, the prevalence of flexible or temporary work, and the emergence of precarious forms of self-employment. They look at the new market economies of post-communist Eastern Europe and China, where economic development may occur at the expense of workers' lives and health; 'misclassification' by employers of workers as 'contractors', denying them access to rights; and the plight of migrant, transient and 'invisible' workers. The impact of supply chain business strategies on the most vulnerable workers; and on the complex relationships between levels of job security and the presence of different kinds of risks are similarly assessed. The contributors also propose responses to the challenges they highlight. The role of employee representatives is examined, together with the potential to enhance worker capability through organisational change. New legislative approaches, and changes to traditional compensation and social security systems are considered. Academics and researchers, policy makers, regulators, trades unionists and occupational health professionals - and wise employers - will all find a use for this book.

Global competition requires a global approach to sourcing activities and China now constitutes one of the most attractive sourcing regions. This book highlights the inducements, advantages and obstacles faced by the enterprises in the development of a sourcing channel in China. A taxonomy of the various sourcing typologies is proposed and a normative model is described that, on the basis of some discriminating variables, suggests the most suitable sourcing choice. The book examines the paths leading to an effective sourcing channel and International Purchasing Office in China, providing concrete examples of successful sourcing experiences.

This book explores the essentials of RFID and the EPCglobal Network from the perspective of a practitioner that needs to make business decisions concerning the adoption of the technology. The perspective is from the supply chain management standpoint with emphasis on case studies and new thinking about the subject. The EPCglobal Network and RFID technology holds great promise for transforming business through the use of low-cost, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to improve information flow and productivity.

The Management of Transshipment Terminals: Decision Support for Terminal Operations in Finished Vehicle Supply Chains is a unique treatment of the transshipment operation and processes on the shipment of automobiles from the Bremerhaven harbor, Germany. It is an analytical, theoretical, and practical work that incorporates Network Optimization, Logistics, Distribution, Transportation, and Supply Chain Management into a framework of Information Systems for a comprehensive understanding of the development of transshipment terminals in the global economy. More specifically, the book examines the function of transshipment terminals and how they can be made more effective and efficient. In sum, the book is a novel treatment of a developing area in the global supply chain economy; and as such, it is an illustrated example of the manifestation of elements within the field of Operations Management on the increasing integration of the transportation logistic system.

Business practices are constantly evolving in order to meet growing customer demands. By implementing fresh procedures through the use of new technologies, organizations are able to remain competitive and meet the expectations of their customers. Designing and Implementing Global Supply Chain Management examines how various organizations have re-engineered their business processes in an effort to accommodate new innovations and remain relevant in a highly competitive global marketplace. Highlighting the creation of integrated supply chains and the emergence of virtual business communities, this publication is an appropriate reference source for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in trending approaches to external business functions used to efficiently respond to growing customer demands.

The rapid advancement of technology and of Internet commerce in a globalized market has brought change at an unprecedented rate. This book focuses on the most significant developments taking place in the market, their impact on the accounting and finance function, the new efficient logistics solutions, and how new technology effects commerce. Based on an extensive research project in the US, Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden, The Internet Supply Chain explains what can be expected in business opportunities and in cost savings from selling and purchasing through the internet. The author goes on to suggest how accounting and logistics will need to be restructured to cope with, and make the most of the challenges and benefits presented by the Internet supply chain.