In most board rooms today, the pressure to continuously shrink the distance from gross revenue to net operating profit and consistently improve ROIC is acute. Many have realized and many more are beginning to realize that a well-integrated and managed supply chain is a major driver of continuously improving results. Advanced Supply Management Strategy and Execution makes the tie between competitive survival and supply chain leadership, maturity of process, and associated results. It clearly defines how to achieve and maintain a supply chain leadership position by focusing on real-world execution and detailed integration of specific actions and process techniques. These distinguished experts and accomplished authors have gathered the nuggets of success from many international firms and combined them into a winning formula, not available in other books, that has been achieved by the select few. This unique, how to guide brings the opportunity within the sub-processes of procurement and supply management into focus and includes both the hard side and soft side of the continuous process transformation. The real-world concepts, deployment examples, and illustrations are practical and explained with precision for ease of understanding and are tailored for application to any business environment. This no-fluff book will put money in your company coffers.In most companies, the effort to improve supply chain results has been short lived, incomplete, or sub-optimized. The most common reason is the lack of a clear understanding of what they really need to do, specifically line of sight linkage of the enterprise in the transformation process efforts to customers and shareholders. Advanced Supply Management Strategy and Execution provides a credible integrated roadmap to extended supply chain and enterprise engagement, and sustained optimized competitive business results. It is a must read for executives, consultants and managers in all types of operations management roles, and is suitable for advanced academic courses as well.

This title focuses on opportunities for growth and innovation through entrepreneurial supply chains, taking the reader through the entire process of opportunity identification, due diligence, writing the business plan, managing risks, integrating the entrepreneurial supply chain venture, and reaping the payoff.

This book provides the interplay between digital transformation, industry 4.0 technologies, and sustainable supply chain performance. The book mainly focuses on presenting case studies and empirical studies demonstrating how the industry 4.0 technologies interact with the conventional manufacturing practices such as lean manufacturing, circular economy practices, total quality management, and maintenance management, while achieving enhanced sustainable supply chain performance. The book guides the practitioners to consider the status of conventional supply chains in their organisations while designing industry 4.0 systems. This book is a useful resource for researchers and academicians to understand the interplay between existing technologies, industry 4.0 technologies, and sustainable performance in the digital transformation journey.

Companies across different industries are launching technology-enabled (digital) business transformation programs to improve their strategic, tactical, and operational supply chain processes. The greatest challenges that they are facing include the lack of preparation and knowledge of the digital transformation life cycle and poorly addressing or neglecting the “people-related” aspects of them. Therefore, improvement initiatives have been short-lived or incomplete, and expected business benefits have not been achieved or materialized. Technology Optimization and Change Management for Successful Digital Supply Chains is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the application of digital business transformation programs to improve strategic, tactical, and operational supply chain processes. While highlighting topics such as maturity models, predictive analysis, and communication planning, this publication explores the limited literature in the field of digital supply chain optimization and business transformation, and complements it with practical and proven tactics from the industry. This book is ideally designed for program managers, engineers, students, and practitioners seeking current research on the field’s latest best practices on digital supply chain enablement.

Digital and communication technologies, from cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoTs), big data and analytics, to artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and blockchain, are having a profound impact on individuals, organisations and society. The devastation caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that digital transformation is no longer an option but a survival necessity. In the supply chain field, technology developments require companies to rethink the way they design and manage their supply chains, in order to cope with ever-growing customer expectations and to remain competitive in the marketplace. Meanwhile mega-trends and geo-political uncertainties such as Brexit, US-China trade wars and climate change have increased the pressure for supply chains to become more agile, resilient and sustainable. This edited book aims to provide readers with deep insights into how those emerging digital technologies, if deployed effectively, will allow organisations to reach the next level of operational effectiveness, and leverage emerging digital supply chain business models to transform their traditional supply chain into a sustainable digital supply chain ecosystem. The book brings together contributions from world-leading experts in supply chain digitalisation from both academia and industry, analysing cutting-edge developments observed in industries and drawing insights from the latest research in the field, such as EU Horizon 2020 project research. The contributors deliberately shy away from more established technological developments such as supply chain planning and execution systems, cloud computing and electronic platforms/networks. They focus entirely on the latest emerging digitalisation developments instead, bringing readers up to date so that they can appreciate how these are disrupting and will disrupt the status quo of supply chains. The target audiences include academics, students (undergraduates and postgraduates) and practitioners who are interested in supply chain digitalisation and transformation.

Achieve best practices in supply chain management Much is being written about global supply chain and sourcing options emerging in today's marketplace. Transforming supply chain management to achieve operations excellence is a mandate for many companies globally. Supply Chain Transformation walks you through this potentially difficult process and gets you started on the journey. Much more than just a how-to book, it's a why-to book that is as compelling for any business person as it is for supply chain management professionals. This book provides an invaluable road map to companies looking to transform their supply chains and organizations to achieve best practice results, beginning with guidance on how to make the case for change. Change is inevitable; growth is optional. Includes real world cases and illustrations Offers a step-by-step road map to transforming your supply chain Explains how to obtain "senior management" commitment to transformation Covers sourcing, production, and logistics process integration points with product development, marketing, sales, and finance processes as well as emerging technologies (RFID, Cloud computing, telematics, ERP, GPS/LBS & others) One of the biggest hurdles to supply chain transformation is overcoming a culture that is resistant to change. Supply Chain Transformation helps you understand the cultural resistance and evaluate where change is needed most, and then develop the game plan for overcoming resistance to achieve best practice results.

Today, supply chain transformation for creating customer value continues to be a priority for many companies, as it enables them to gain a competitive advantage. While value creation is shaped by external drivers such as market volatility, technology, product and service offering and disruption, it can be stymied by the internal stresses arising from the need to minimize costs, limitations in process redesign, waste minimization and the unavailability of knowledge capital. Therefore, for companies to survive and prosper, the relevant questions to ask would be how to identify the external/internal forces driving changes and how to map the business drivers to the attributes of transformation. While the contemporary supply chain is well-structured, the evolving economic system is causing disruptions to this structure. The emergence of novel business paradigms – non applicability of the traditional laws of supply and demand, dominance of negative externality effects and anomalies of high growth rate coexisting with high supply side uncertainty – must be recognized in transforming supply chains. For example, healthcare delivery and humanitarian relief do not follow known supply/demand relationships; the negative externality effects are increasing sustainability concerns; and emerging economies, with dysfunctional business infrastructure, must manage high growth rates. This book delves into the transformation issues in supply chains and extends the concepts to incorporate emerging issues. It does so through ten chapters, divided into three sections. The first section establishes the framework for transformation, while the second focuses on the transformation of current chains in terms of products, processes, supply base, procurement, logistics and fulfillment. Section three is devoted to capturing the key issues in transforming supply chains for emerging economies, humanitarian relief, sustainability and healthcare delivery. This work will be of interest to both academics and industrial practitioners and will be of great value to graduate students in business and engineering. It raises many questions, some provocative and provides many leads for in-depth research. Several approaches are suggested for new problems along with a discussion of case studies and examples from different industries.

In the midst of global disruptions, every element of IBM® Supply Chain has been affected. the IBM cognitive supply chain is positioned to win the future by using the exponential technologies that are inherent to our supply chains, and with flexibility, resiliency, and end-to-end visibility. The constant commitment of IBM to building smarter supply chains over the past decade has primed IBM to quickly and effectively navigate these disruptions and course-correct by using cognitive innovation. As a result, IBM Supply Chain teams were able to deliver exceptional outcomes without client disruption. In addition, this widespread impact inspired numerous new solutions that include exponential technologies that better prepare IBM for future disruptions in constantly changing markets.

In order to experience significant improvement in business processes, successful organizations must launch, implement, and maintain effective transformation programs. Such programs enable companies to fully maximize benefits and avoid potential failures. Optimization of Supply Chain Management in Contemporary Organizations discusses best practices and methods in transformation initiatives that improve the overall functionality and success of supply chain processes. Focusing on performance measurement, change management, and strategy development, this book is an essential reference source for executives, managers, advanced-level students, and professionals working in the field of business transformations and supply chain development.

With the world having been plunged into uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, a critical issue for senior management is stabilizing their supply chain to a consistent flow of components and materials. Even before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain complexity had been an increasingly “hot” topic. Add to that the complexity of new tariff restrictions, port congestion, regional conflicts, and geopolitical events and disruptions due to international conflict, and it is apparent that securing access to materials and critical resources is not without difficulty, and forecasting demand is even harder. Digital Supply Chain, Disruptive Environments, and the Impact on Retailers brings together the field’s latest best practices on digital supply chain enablement, giving business professionals a comprehensive framework to ensure successful supply chain business transformation programs. Covering topics such as business planning, digital transformation, and volatile demand, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for managers, directors, vice presidents, supply chain executives, IT directors, consultants, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.