In the last half of the twentieth century industry encountered a revolutionary change brought about by the harnessed power of seemingly ever-increasing capacity, speed and functionality of computers and microprocessors. This strength provided management and workers within industries with new capabilities for management, planning and control, design, quality assurance and customer support. Organized information flow became the mainstay of industrial companies. New tools and information technology systems emerged and evolved to enable companies to integrate the various departments (Design, Procurement, Manufacturing, Sales and Finance) within companies, particularly the lager ones, including international corporations. This was to give them a chance to meet new demands for product time to market, just in time supply of orders, and customer support. To the smaller company these changes were not so apparent. Neither the tools nor systems nor indeed their economic value seemed appropriate to them except for special cases. While all this was happening the structure of the larger companies began to disintegrate. Strong competitive pressures and globalization of the market place brought this about. Shedding unwanted competence and subcontracting it to others became common practice. Regional market pressures triggered companies to reorganize to create, produce, and distribute goods and services. Greater dependency on chains of supply from external companies became the norm. Medium and smaller sized companies began to gain some advantage and at the same time some were sucked into management and control systems governed by the larger companies.

Bikash Chatterjee emphasizes the criticality of applying the principles of Lean and Six Sigma within the paradigm of the drug development process. His guide to operational excellence in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries is a focused summary of the application of Lean Six Sigma theory to the regulated life sciences. From molecule discovery to the application of PAT Applying Lean Six Sigma in the Pharmaceutical Industry will highlight the importance of framing these initiatives within the key deliverables of drug development manufacturing and quality. Challenging conventional wisdom the author offers a quality and efficiency perspective as a foundation for the principles of Quality by Design, PAT and the new philosophies underlying Process Validation. Each chapter includes discussion around the considerations for applying Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma principles and their tools, culminating in a case study to illustrate the application. The book is organized to reflect the major work centers involved in the drug development lifecycle. Each chapter is stand-alone but together they illustrate the necessary synergy between Lean, Six Sigma and compliance sensibilities required to be successful in the pharmaceutical industry. These design, manufacturing and management techniques are not without their challenges. Bikash Chatterjee's book offers the roadmap for an industry that is struggling to reinvent many of its development and business processes.

Every day human organisations fail. Building Anti-Fragile Organisations explores a powerful alternative framework for risk in the design and management of human systems. Anti-Fragility is a new way of thinking about mitigating risk that builds on earlier work on the characteristics of biological systems that, being more than just robust, actually improve their resilience through being stressed. Professor Bendell explains how applying this concept to the development and management of organisations, services and products, allows us to identify the characteristics that will not only mitigate against the realisation of hazards, but enable growth in protection, strength and anti-fragility over time. In this context, anti-fragility also encompasses flexibility, agility and the exploitation of opportunities. At the organisational level, anti-fragility (or its absence) is determined by the organisational strategy, structure and systems, its people, relationships and culture. The book focuses on establishing the Anti-Fragile concept of the firm, and explores its application in private and public sector organisations of all types. It identifies characteristics relevant to survival in a turbulent world, and how our approaches to risk and governance need to change in order to create and manage anti-fragile organisations. It provides practical insight into the concept of Anti-Fragility and its deployment within human organisations of all types, and give readers the opportunity to start to make sense to applying the concepts within their own worlds.

Knowledge management has been widely applied to various industries as a good strategy to help improve firms' performance. As globalisation accelerates and international trade increases more and more, maritime transport operations have become one of the vitalest industries to receive large attention from international managers. This is because the managers have perceived that the maritime transport system is an integrated entity within the global logistics and supply chain, and it should be therefore managed in the most efficient and effective ways possible, as an organic body within a global logistics system. Taking this approach, this book examines how maritime transport operators - such as shipping companies, port terminal operators and freight forwarders - could successfully play a role within the global logistics flow wherein they are embedded by improving their logistic value, i.e. maritime logistics value. As per the objective, the current book suggests a knowledge management based solution. It attempts to systematically investigate what types of knowledge are needed in the maritime logistics industry, how maritime operators could effectively acquire the knowledge, and whether the acquired knowledge would help maritime operators enhance maritime logistics value. This book provides not only comprehensive understandings of knowledge management strategy, but also its practical application to the maritime logistics industry. This would therefore be a useful guidebook for the managers, academics, and undergraduate / postgraduate students in the field of maritime transport and global logistics, to help them to gain comprehensive knowledge of the application of knowledge management strategy to the industry--

This book provides a thorough perspective on the realities of doing business in Ghana, outlining the economic, social, technological, and cultural dimensions of the society. It offers insight for entrepreneurs into the region's markets based on GDP growth, political and governmental systems, relationships with investors, and other factors. Considered a beacon of hope for Africa, Ghana is a country with a competitive labor force, stable political environment, and lots of economic opportunities for new business ventures. This book will offer academics a good understanding of the major issues affecting business development in Ghana, and inform students, scholars, managers, and leaders on the paths necessary to pursue launching a product or service in Africa.

Although tens of thousands of global users have implemented Systems, Applications, and Products (SAP) for enterprise data processing for decades, there has been a need for a dependable reference on the subject, particularly for SAP materials management (SAP MM). Filling this need, The SAP Materials Management Handbook provides a complete understanding of how to best configure and implement the SAP MM module across various types of projects. It uses system screenshots of real-time SAP environments to illustrate the complete flow of business transactions involved with SAP MM. Supplying detailed explanations of the steps involved, it presents case studies from actual projects that demonstrate how to convert theory into powerful SAP MM solutions. Includes tips on the customization required for procurement of materials and inventory management Covers the range of business scenarios related to SAP MM, including the subcontracting cycle and consignment cycle Provides step-by-step guidance to help you implement your own SAP MM module Illustrates the procure to pay lifecycle Depicts critical business flows with screenshots of real-time SAP environments This much-needed reference explains how to use the SAP MM module to take care of the range of business functions related to purchasing, including purchase orders, purchase requisitions, outline contracts, and request for quotation. It also examines all SAP MM inventory management functions such as physical inventory, stock overview, stock valuation, movement types, and reservations-explaining how SAP MM can be used to define and maintain materials in your systems.

Much of your company's success in global trade will be determined by how well you manage contracts and agreements for sale or purchase. Mastering the Business of Global Trade: Negotiating Competitive Advantage Contractual Best Practices, Incoterms, and Leveraging Supply Chain Options explains the key elements any international business person must know, but more importantly, it also describes how to use negotiation skills, leveraged options, and Incoterms to extract the maximum benefits from your supply chain. At the end of the day, landed costs determine pricing and profits. As such, the book clearly explains how landed cost modeling works and how you can use these business models to leverage supply chain options. Illustrating how Inco terms impact compliance and risk, it details options to help you reduce your exposure to risk as well as best practices to help you steer clear of compliance issues that can cause costly delays. Managing global supply chains is about constantly striving for efficiency, driving down costs, and increasing profits. With this book, you will not only learn how to negotiate better contracts, but you will also learn how to manage relationships with freight forwarders and customhouse brokers in a manner that will help you get the most value from your service agreements. The book establishes a very simple, yet comprehensive, roadmap that both the neophyte and the more experienced global supply chain executive can easily follow and master. By following the time-proven advice and roadmap detailed in these pages, you will learn that it is possible to engage in more deals and increase your returns, while reducing your overall risk exposure. This book is part of The Global Warrior series.

Traditional costing models for new systems and new buildings in industry, defence or government, have tended to focus on the costs of acquisition and implementation, with scant regard for the costs of running the system or decommissioning after use. The pressure to minimize expenditure and provide value for money from reduced resources means that complex projects have to encompass a wide range of often conflicting issues and interests. Systems Lifecycle Cost-Effectiveness shows how to manage the difficulties that can arise. Optimizing the system lifecycle cost-effectiveness is complex and influenced by many factors. Massimo Pica presents a variety of models for calculating cost, benefits and risk in projects, and explains how the human factors associated with a system's design and consequent value are as important as the technical costs associated with its construction or creation. This comprehensive text can be used by students, experienced system engineers, cost analysts and managers to improve their understanding of the wide range of issues involved in the evaluation of system life cycle cost-effectiveness.

Transparency and accurate management information are essential if you want to ensure that the supply chain is working for your business. Supply Chain Visibility is a critical primer for readers with backgrounds in supply chain management, system integration, strategy consulting, and enterprise software. Jonah McIntire sets the stage for a new framework that empowers business leaders to connect their projects, tasks or work streams back to the strategic message that it is worth applying organizational resources to supply chain visibility. Drawing on research findings, he reviews the prerequisites needed for a successful visibility solution and suggests a visibility fitness scorecard to compare the quality of widely varying approaches. The second section of the book reviews in detail the eight most common types of supply chain visibility and offers a set of indicators of potential fit for each one. The book also explains how to acquire visibility technology and the available options, and includes guidance on best practice for in-house designed systems. If you or your organization are moving into this area, Jonah's insights will place you in a far stronger position to decide exactly how to leverage the benefits of supply chain visibility solutions; they also walk you carefully through the minefields of ineffective approaches or technologies to give you the greatest chance of success.

Value aggregation to goods and services is unbelievably important to the balance of trade of modern nations, yet it receives minute attention by economists and policy-makers alike. In Competitiveness in the Real Economy, Rui Vinhas da Silva shows that the nature and dynamics of contemporary global competition requires a sharper focus on value aggregation. He provides a rounded, integrative and multi-disciplinary perspective linking national competitiveness, economics and management. The emphasis is on a transversal philosophy of value aggregation as a key driver of national competitiveness across sectors in the real economy and from production to the consumption of goods and services. The links between exports, inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and country competitiveness are examined along with the role of exports and the attraction of FDI inflows in building national GDP. The author emphasises that culture, the notion of being cosmopolitan and understanding aspirational and discriminatory consumers with high disposable income are key drivers of success in the global economy. Acknowledging that the complexity of problems comes from diversity of global actors, the author highlights the limitations of current economics in responding to contemporary challenges. His concern about the management sciences and management learning is that solutions do not lie in the formulation and prescription of universal laws, but are contextually-laden and derive from an informed intuition that is partly taught and partly experiential. The book addresses the implications of all this for how the management skills needed for competitive advantage might best be developed.

* A perfect guide for marketing and sustainable procurement and supply chain professionals in large companies, local authorities and governments and NGOs globally. * Can be used as a supplementary text on postgraduate and advanced undergraduate courses aimed at responsible marketing and procurement. * The book can be used internationally - ethical buying and selling behaviours are proliferating in almost all countries of the world. * Written by a leading authority on ethical consumption.

The way organizations manage their value chain has changed dramatically over the past decade. Today, organizations take account of economic issues, but they also adopt a broader perspective of their purpose including social and environmental issues. Yet despite its global spread, sustainable value chain management remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition, with few absolutes. The social and environmental issues that organizations should address easily can be interpreted as including virtually everything. Current literature on the topic seeks to understand the effects and management of initiatives dealing with diversity, human rights, safety, philanthropy, community, and environment. However, the penetration of social and environmental considerations into value chain management is described as 'desire lacking reality' thereby making the idea a patchy success. The objective of this research anthology is to investigate different angles of sustainable value chain management. The book's 27 chapters fill holes and explore new fields; the chapters are organised in five sections: Sustainable value chains - context, drivers, and barriers; Sustainable value chains - managing activities; Sustainable value chains - managing networks and collaboration; Sustainable value chains - integrative perspectives; and Sustainable value chains - specific sectorial and industry perspectives.

Managers involved at a senior level in the purchasing function require very particular financial skills. They need to: analyse the financial health and stability of their suppliers; model different cost and price scenarios; understand and manage budgets; and be comfortable with the financial aspects of capital purchases. Finance for Purchasing Managers is written from this perspective using buyer's language and interpretation. Richard France explores four key areas of expertise required of a buyer in today's environment: Financial analysis of suppliers - this includes understanding the financial aspects of a buyer's own organisation plus analysing key suppliers and how to use information to gain a negotiating edge. Pricing, costing and cost modelling - including costing methods and their application and how an understanding of these can give buyers a greater understanding when dealing with supplier quotations. Managing resources - including budgeting and sources of finance. This shows how budgets are drawn up and the importance of understanding the implications of the buyer's decisions on a supplier's cash flow forecast. Finally, capital and revenue purchasing decisions and techniques - covering standard investment appraisal techniques and how these can be used for deciding on the best deal from a choice of suppliers for both capital items as well as a standard long term parts supply contract. Finance for Purchasing Managers may be used to support the CIPS Level 6 Course 'Finance for Purchasers' but also offers a readable and practical guide for those at a senior level in purchasing whether in the public or private sector.

Equality, Diversity and Opportunity Management presents a comprehensive analysis of the processes of governance, leadership, policy and strategy formulation, decision-making, practical and financial management, and real-world implementation of the Equality, Diversity, Opportunity, and Discrimination (or anti-Discrimination) Agenda. The leadership, cost, and management of the Agenda for Equality, Diversity, Opportunity, and Discrimination (or anti-Discrimination) is discussed in three mandatory areas: c Employment and the Workplace c Service Provision and customer service c Neighbourhood and Community Management The necessary choice of these three key areas of application reflects a typical focus of government policy, legislation, and case law for the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and in many other countries that implement active Human Rights Agendas. You will find the book strongly orientated towards issues of corporate governance, personal and vicarious responsibility, leadership, cost management, implementation, and delivery. It deals directly, professionally, and in a non-opinionated manner with challenging (and sometimes unpopular or unwanted) issues of equality and inequality, diversity, a lack of opportunity or social mobility, and the widespread incidence of discrimination. The work suggests practical and realistic means to deal with such issues, whether at the level of corporate governance, leadership, policy and strategy, the incurring of unnecessary cost, or at the level of operational and departmental management procedure and process. Equality, Diversity and Opportunity Management is written at the same time from scholarly, objective, applied, proportionate, 'hands-on', and practitioner based perspectives.

How is it possible to sell a kitchen at 30 per cent below market price? Why are hot dogs cheaper in IKEA than in the supermarket? How can IKEA sell the Lack table at half the price it was when it was launched 35 years ago and how can it be achieved with a substantial profit? Strategic Sourcing and Category Management examines how IKEA - and other cost leading companies - use category management to create advantages with direct and indirect sourcing. With 25 years' experience from IKEA, where he had the responsibility to develop and execute the company's purchasing strategy, author Magnus Carlsson shares his insights on important topics: when category management is profitable and why; how teams repeatedly create value and results; what the main approaches are in different categories; how a company implements category management; the difference between success and failure. In this new edition of Strategic Sourcing and Category Management, Magnus Carlsson has added new themes including examples and references from companies such as Maersk, Carlsberg, P&G and Aldi, illustrating the application of cost leadership that spans far beyond IKEA. Even there, the cost leadership lessons are not limited to home furnishings as the company is sourcing categories such as food, components, materials, transports and indirect materials, with a total purchasing spend of approximately EURO7 billion. But maybe even more importantly, the book illustrates how teams create value by thinking differently and asking the right questions, allowing an understanding that goes beyond mere tools and processes.

Marketing High Profit Product/Service Solutions addresses one of the most exciting and growing strategic marketing opportunities facing product and service companies - 'bundling'. Many customers want bundled products and services which represent integrated solutions to their problems, rather than buying individual products and services piecemeal, and if you become that supplier it can transform a company. There are many outstanding examples: Magna International grew in several stages from a supplier of basic individual auto parts to a company manufacturing a product/service 'super-bundle'; ultimately sourcing and assembling the entire car itself. GE developed their business involving the supply of medical imaging machines to hospitals to become a 'super-bundler' of complete hospital radiological floor imaging operations planning, installation, and integration. IBM transformed their position as a supplier of individual hardware, software, and peripherals to companies into a product/service solution 'bundler' of increasing complexity, and finally into the 'super-bundle' of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing); representing an outsourced and complete integrated IT solution set for clients' entire global operations. Roger More explores what was learned by these leading companies (amongst others) when they transformed their market strategies to become bundlers of complex integrated customer solutions. Over many years the author has developed and tested new concepts, maps and tools for use by a wide variety of managers in developing strategies for these bundled product/service solutions. His book now offers these maps and tools to all who invest in a copy.

Adaptive Supply Chain Management develops new viewpoints on the SCM goal paradigm, problem semantics, and decision-making support.

Drawing upon years of research and practical experience, and using numerous examples, the authors unite conceptual considerations of supply chains with a constructive level of engineering and solutions to real-world problems. Adaptive Supply Chain Management provides advanced insights into dynamics, complexity, and uncertainty in supply chains from the perspectives of systems analysis, control theory, and operations research. It also considers supply chain adaptability, stability, and crisis-resistance.

Providing readers with a comprehensive view of advanced SCM concepts, constructive mathematical techniques and models, Adaptive Supply Chain Management is an invaluable text for practitioners and researchers who specialize in SCM and operations.

This comprehensive book provides students with the skills and savvy needed to become successful buyers in any area of retail. Its simple and straightforward approach presents step-by-step instructions for typical buying tasks, such as identifying and understanding potential customers, creating a six-month merchandising plan, and developing sales forecasts. This new edition contains up-to-date coverage of important retailing trends and technological advances, including social responsibility, sustainability, fast fashion, and the use of new media and social networking. Ample activities-drawn from real-world merchandising and incorporating current trends-give students the opportunity to apply critical skills as they would in a professional environment.

A guide to help readers meet the demands of an evolving competitive business environment, Modeling of Responsive Supply Chain outlines novel concepts and strategies for implementing a fully integrated system of business improvement methodologies.

This self-contained reference covers various key aspects of supply chain management, which is crucial to boosting industrial growth in the face of expanding globalization in the manufacturing and transportation sectors. The book focuses on topics that could potentially improve the free flow of goods and services between nations by helping users assess the performance of logistic systems deployed to achieve this end.

Chapters present a conventional and evolutionary approach to coordinating all elements of the supply chain to optimize an enterprise s competitive advantage. The authors explore different models associated with transportation, facility location, and assignments, as well as planning and scheduling. They also address diverse technologies, such as RFID tags used to monitor product flow within the supply chain network.

This book addresses the importance of:

• Recognizing responsiveness as a metric of supply chain performance
• Domain interfaces for solving the optimization problem by making supply chains more responsive
• Coordination through contracts to enhance responsiveness
• System dynamics methodology to achieve responsiveness, as well as management principles, control theory, and computer simulation
• The use of different types of technologies to build a better supply chain that achieves higher responsiveness

Few, if any, single volumes provide the detailed explanation of practical and conceptual approaches found in this book. It covers the entire spectrum of topics and will be equally useful as a reference for scholars and graduate students and as a compendium for practitioners dealing with real-life problems in contemporary supply chain management.

Pressures imposed by today's modern and highly competitive business environment and momentum created with the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies force business entities to rethink current models, in order to benefit from a more flexible and cost effective form of organizational management. Managing Risk in Virtual Enterprise Networks: Implementing Supply Chain Principles aspires to set a point-of-reference for scholars and researchers in the fields of Virtual Enterprises and Supply Chain Management who are interested in studying the Risk Management dimension in a cross-disciplinary fashion by applying new ideas and synthetic thinking in already well established concepts. Furthermore, this valuable reference aims to attract both graduate and post-graduate students studying the Risk Management discipline.

This book focuses on futuristic approaches and designs for real-time systems and applications, as well as the fundamental concepts of including advanced techniques and tools in models of data-driven blockchain ecosystems. The Data-Driven Blockchain Ecosystem: Fundamentals, Applications, and Emerging Technologies discusses how to implement and manage processes for releasing and delivering blockchain applications. It presents the core of blockchain technology, IoT-based and AI-based blockchain systems, and various manufacturing areas related to Industry 4.0. The book illustrates how to apply design principles to develop and manage blockchain networks, and also covers the role that cloud computing plays in blockchain applications. All major technologies involved in blockchain-embedded applications are included in this book, which makes it useful to engineering students, researchers, academicians, and professionals interested in the core of blockchain technology.

Losing contracts at rebid can have a major impact on a business: the loss of turnover and profit, of customers, skills, people and potentially reduced morale and confidence. Investment in retaining rebids can underpin significant increases in growth, at a lower cost than focussing only on chasing new business. Average retention rate of contracts at rebid is 60-70% across many companies, with others retaining as little as 50%, or less. However, there are proven approaches that can improve any company's chances of winning. Winning Your Rebid will help incumbent contractors increase their chances of retaining an existing contract. Whilst it includes the skills of bidding for new contracts, rebidding requires a significantly different set of actions and processes. The book takes you through all the preparations throughout a contract that will put you in the best position to win your rebid and includes valuable advice, techniques, case studies and ideas on how to run and deliver it successfully.

Bridging the gap between current merchandising math textbooks and retail buying textbooks, "The Fundamentals of Retail Buying with Merchandising Math" incorporates both buying philosophies and merchandising math. The text's problem-based method of learning incorporates questions and problems that train the reader to "think" like a buyer and encourage group collaboration and critical thinking. Simulated exercises mimic real-life buying responsibilities. Additionally, the order of the chapters and content within each chapter mimic the training of an assistant buyer in a corporate buying office. Providing a full, broad view of the retail buyer's role, the text also includes the key merchandising math formulae that is the basis of all retail buying analysis.

The supply chain is at the heart of every successful business organization's decision-making process. This textbook explains how to create a winning supply chain management strategy by spotlighting how senior executives in European and US companies have turned their supply chains into strategic weapons designed to convert threats, risks and outside pressures into competitive advantages. Strategic Supply Chain Management contains twenty real-world cases, all of which have been field researched by a top author team and tested out in the classroom. Each case adopts an executive leadership perspective to illuminate the real dilemmas faced by managers. The authors draw on their extensive classroom and industry experience to ensure that the writing style is geared towards an executive education readership. This elite case package will provide a complete teaching resource and authentic learning experience for MBA and executive education classes in Supply Chain Management throughout the world.

This book examines key issues, challenges, opportunities and trends in innovation processes and supply chain management. It proposes ways for organizations to improve their performance by developing business strategies, establishing business innovation activities, and aligning business and innovation activities among firms. Further, it showcases and analyzes the implementation of inter- and intra-organizational process improvement activities and the implementation of organizational innovation solutions to address new product and process-related collaborative relationships across the supply chain. The book is useful for researchers, academics and professionals, presenting some of the most advanced research, concepts, and case studies on the relationship between innovation and supply chain.