An executive-level strategic guide to maximizing financial, service, and operations performance using the proven RightStock model of inventory management In most organizations, highly qualified professionals are required to respond to a barrage of typically uncoordinated initiatives from across the organization. Those initiatives normally include increasing SKUs, customization, and inventory availability while reducing customer response times, transportation costs, purchase costs, and manufacturing costs. Inventory Strategy arms them with a strategy for easily achieving this otherwise impossible task by presenting a proven, fact-based, balanced, and logical means of determining the proper role and level of inventory in supply chain strategy.

This book explains supply chain management (SCM) using the strategy–structure–process–performance (SSPP) framework. Utilizing this well-known framework of contingency theory in the areas of strategic management and organizational design, SCM is firmly positioned among management theories. The author specifically proposes a theoretical foundation of SCM that will be relevant to such areas as operations management, logistics management, purchasing management, and marketing. Both the static and dynamic sides of SCM are reported. On the static side, supply chain strategies are divided into three patterns: efficiency-oriented, responsiveness-oriented, and the hybrid efficiency- and responsiveness-oriented pattern. For each strategy, suitable internal and external supply chain structures and processes are proposed. On the dynamic side, the big issue is to overcome performance trade-offs. Based on theories of organizational change, process change, and dynamic capabilities, the book presents a model of supply chain process change. On structure, the focus is on the role of an SCM steering department. Illustrative cases are included from such diverse industries as automobiles (Toyota and Nissan ), personal computers (Fujitsu), office equipment (Ricoh), air-conditioning (Daikin), tobacco (Japan Tobacco), chemicals and cosmetics (Kao), and casual fashion (Fast Retailing and Inditex).The strategy and organization of SCM is systematically presented on the basis of the SSPP framework. In particular, the relationships among three management elements—strategy, structure, and process—can be identified in an SCM context. From many of the cases contained in this volume, there emerges an understanding of how to analyze the success and failure factors of SCM using the SSPP framework. In addition, the reader sees not only the static side SCM such as process operation but also its dynamic side such as process innovation and process improvement.

Today’s manufacturing systems are undergoing significant changes in the aspects of planning, production execution, and delivery. It is imperative to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in optimization to efficiently create products for the market. The Handbook of Research on Applied Optimization Methodologies in Manufacturing Systems is a pivotal reference source including the latest scholarly research on heuristic models for solving manufacturing and supply chain related problems. Featuring exhaustive coverage on a broad range of topics such as assembly ratio, car sequencing, and color constraints, this publication is ideally designed for practitioners seeking new comprehensive models for problem solving in manufacturing and supply chain management.

A full-color playbook for maximizing financial, service, and operations performance with inventory strategy. Inventory Strategy is a journey through increasingly advanced inventory strategies and increasing levels of inventory management maturity. The book employs a comprehensive mix of case studies, analytics, and illustrations to confront prevailing inventory paradigms, re-establish the fundamentals of inventory, and optimize inventory levels across financial, service, and operational perspectives. The book and its underlying RightStock(TM) model present a proven, fact-based, balanced, and logical means of determining the proper role and level of inventory in supply chain strategy. The model is responsible for more than $1 Billion in profit increases to date.

In my career as a purchasing professional, I had to resort to publications on Corporate Purchasing, but the ones I consulted did not address several important subjects. Hence the motivation to write The Ultimate Guide of Purchaser, with over 30,000 copies sold. Nevertheless, renewing the book is indispensable; several new topics are in this edition. Purchasing areas evolve quickly. Decades ago, tools were simple, with almost no electronic resources, and it took days to receive proposals. The focus was on Sales, without valuing Purchases, as if it were possible to survive without competitive costs! Organizational transformations, the reduction of structures, and the change of paradigms require different skills from purchasers to succeed. They participate in defining the purchasing strategy, develop tools to evaluate the supplier's performance, and are vital in implementing Strategic Sourcing and Global Sourcing, for example. When buying a good or service, the purchaser must assess the impact on other processes in the organization's production or operational chain. A company's profits depend on selling well and buying well. Knowing how to negotiate, purchase, and differentiate opportunities from pitfalls are skills that reduce costs and increase earnings. The Ultimate Guide of Purchaser analyzes industrial, service, and commercial acquisitions, and it is worth highlighting how the backbone of procurement procedures is similar in different branches. The book offers valuable insights and serves beginners and those with years in the field. The Ultimate Guide of Purchaser is also helpful for students to learn how to work in purchasing or logistics. Progressing in your career requires adapting to new challenges, and such a task is practically unfeasible without theoretical and practical support, and offering such resources is our modest intention. The development and updating of the book took years, aiming to provide qualified and beneficial information for you, reader!

The industry standard in supply chain management—fully revised and updated to provide today’s logistics solutions The proven pillars of success in logistics and supply chain management introduced in the first edition of Supply Chain Strategy now guide the supply chains of many of the world’s most successful organizations, including 3M, Abbott, BP, Coca-Cola, Disney, Hallmark, Honda, Mitsubishi, Oxxo-FEMSA, Payless, P&G, Pratt & Whitney, Wal-Mart, Rio Tinto, and many others. This Second Edition features up-to-date case studies showing how those companies and more meet supply chain goals and helps you overcome your own challenges with the latest supply chain innovations, including big-data analytics, supply chain command and control centers, large-scale supply chain optimization, integrated supply chain planning, real-time global supply chain visibility, omni-channel logistics, re-shoring, global-sourcing optimization, cloud-based supply chain management, supply chain finance, global trade management, and fourth-party logistics.

Discover how your supply chain and operations work impacts financial performance, and how to align your efforts to help your company succeed — the fastest, best way to supercharge your own career! As a supply chain or operations professional, you may clearly understand your operational performance goals. But if you want to get promoted, you need to know how your day-to-day work powerfully impacts the financial metrics your top executives care about most.

The present Conference is the 4th of similar conferences with the same subject, which are organised of the Department of Business Administration. The Technological Educational Institution of Athens, is a Tertiary Educational Institution of Excellence with an impressive record in teaching and research and is sponsoring the present Conference. The purpose of our Conference is to present and publish the research output of, not only TEI of Athens, but all the Universities and Technological Institutions of Greece and the different Nations of the World. Another important purpose is to facilitate the interaction between two worlds: the world of Business and the world of Academic Community. The organizers of this Conference have the ambition to establish a forum for discussions on the theory and applications of the Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in the different business sectors such as Small to Medium Enterprises or large Companies in Industry, Commerce, Tourism, Health, Public Sector, Shipping Industry and financial services. The Conference has a Scientific Committee and all the papers have been examined by two anonymous referees. Selected papers will be published in internationally recognized journals. The Proceedings of the Conference have ISBN, ISSN numbers and they will appear, after the Conference in Google.

EBOOK: Operations Management in the Supply Chain: Decisions and Cases