Customer Reviews

Chain Reaction: How Today?s Best Companies Manage Their Supply Chains for Superior Performance

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Chain Reaction is one of the best written books on today's supply chain issues. Being a professional involved in supply chain for a number of years, I find that most companies, even the ones with well developed supply chains, don't really understand all the risks they face. Malone presents a well developed history in this book, but more importantly, he shows how the most successful companies step out into new territory, and also manage the risks in their supply chains. When he says that Wal-Mart is a supply chain, he is driving home a point that today's companies need to understand. With global outsourcing and contract manufacturing now being the norm, Malone's point is that a company is only as good as its supply chain.

What's so great about this book is that it presents, in an easy-to-read fashion, important information on how to make a worldwide supply chain work. Each chapter has many "golden nuggets" that a help a company in almost any industry improve its competitive position. This book doesn't get into the nitty-gritty aspects of supply chain, but instead inspires enterprises to gain more market share with a better developed supply chain. I'd say it's a must read for any organization that wants to be successful in today's global environment.

Robert Malone uses his deep knowledge of modern worldwide logistics to help you understand what has happened to your supply chain. He analyzes the issues that businesses face and uses corporate examples to illustrate his points. He presents the material within each chapter as a series of short, two or three paragraph articles. This contributes to a somewhat impressionistic style, but getAbstract finds that the overall effect is quite interesting and informative. If you need to get a handle on the modern supply chain and the logistics it entails, this is a useful take on the subject.

Two superior books in one cover - Robert Malone is both a great futurist and chronicler of technology in our changing world and a guru on supply chain. The first part of this book talks about the vastness, complexity, speed, and nano-ness of our new world and business climate. He grabs you with facts and makes you think afresh about where we are realy headed. Parts two and three bring us deep into global supply as an infomration and logisitics revolution of enormous complexity and still untapped potential.

Even more people might access these treasures if it were published with another title and cover to stress the transformation of the business world with supply chain as an example, rather than the main topic.

Malone's book is readable "big picture" review of supply chain issues. While it's a light read -- jargon is minimal -- explains how a variety of design, production, and enterprise management systems, as well as information technologies, relate and play off each other in the operation and management of moving materials, the information about the materials and their movements, customer service/relationships, and the success of business enterprises. He also gives some history about the growth of "third-party logistics companies."

The writing style is punchy without being overbearing. It's a fast read. At times, it can be a little scattered, containing tidbits and tangents that, while interesting, tend to leave the reader hanging. But that's more than made up for the wealth of information about what constitutes a "supply chain" and why we should care about it.

Malone provides a set of "cautionary words about various elements of logistics and supply chain planning." Cautionary, yes; better, they are thought provoking. Even before these words, Malone has pointed out that "the `supply chain' as a term is a misnomer today. It implies a linear arrangement in which one event leads or is linked to another event.... Events in a real supply network (for want of abetter word) act on each other and have a more organic than mechanical relationship." For that insight alone -- and there are more to consider -- this book is a worthwhile read.

This book is probably too basic for professionals in supply chain management, logistics, materials handling, warehousing, enterprise management, and related disciplines. However, it should be a "must read" for those people just entering those supply-chain disciplines, as well as for employees wanting a better understanding about their companies emphasis on logistics/supply chain management, or for employees of companies already selling hardware/software/services for supply chain management. (In that latter group, I would also add people in those companies' public relations and advertising firms.)

I found Chain Reaction to be a highly intelligent review of not only the history and development of the logistics industry, but an invaluable preview of where new technologies are taking this rapidly evolving industry in what is now a global supply chain environment. Mr. Malone provides fascinating, on-target insights in what is an essential book for any manager or student of logistics.

Most people outside the industry have little or no understanding of Supply Chan and Logistics. This book serves as a great introduction. The information is presented in a way that makes it easy for the average person to understand and appreciate. A great read for anybody interested in learning the role and importance of Supply Chain Management in today's business world.

Most books on supply chain management get lost in the grimble of laborious case studies and details of "how to," and lack a larger perspective. This book provides the necessary big picture, connects many historical dots, and answers some key questions: How did logistics and supply chain management develop? What role does it play in creating organizational wealth? How is automation changing how things work on a global scale? What does operational innovation really look like? How do you wrestle the issue of complex supply chain logistics to the ground?

Given that everyone needs to think about the delivery of what they do on a daily basis--how to get the right thing to the right person in the right form with the right quality at the right price--Chain Reaction is an indispensable guide.

What's nice is that the chapters are delivered in nuggets...that allows you to start and stop without a loss of continuity, and at the same time provokes and engages your brain, because you constantly are asking yourself: how does this relate to the last part? How does this fit with that? The end result is that you remember and understand more because you're making those connections yourself without being spoon-fed.

I had a chance to hear about this book before it was published. But, Wow was I surprised at how it turned out. CHAIN REACTION is right on when it comes to operations, operators and opinions. Robert A. Malone has put together a book that focuses a detailed picture of the companies that make supply things work then zooms back to tell how they manage to do it like a fine worldwide machine. If you need a precise yet fast, solid chunk of information about the sophisticated world of supply chains this is the book. Robert A. Malone's introduction promises to explore "...how the new methodologies of automation and communication require a new look at innovation and business strategies." That's exactly what he does.

Rather than being a series of case studies in logistics, the author shares his insights about the history and development of logistics. Robert Malone divides the book's 20 chapters into 3 parts. The first seven chapters talk about the changing scale of the world. Huge ships that won't even get through the Panama Canal, tiny iPods that hold thousands of song and are made from parts made around the globe. How things are getting faster, impossibly complex, and require computers, much like the way the B-2 bomber can't be flown without computers translating what the pilot wants to keep the flying and control surfaces where they need to be. Malone talks about real innovation rather than the kind of chewing the fat daydreaming most people consider its hallmark. I enjoyed his discussion of automation and communication. He has a great take on automation being in the seeing and thinking rather than in the machines. It is the same with communications, it is what is being transmitted and why rather than in the medium.

Then he takes us to the creation and evolution of the supply chain. The sheer volume and complexity of today's supply chains is amazing. It has led to revolutions in manufacturing, retailing, and in shipping, air, trucking, and warehousing. The discussion of how competition within the logistics industry has not only led to the aggressive adoption of cost lowering technologies, but has also driven companies to create revolutionary approaches to logistics.

The last section is more about what is missing (for one thing, Malone thinks global infrastructure is quite poor, especially in the U.S.), what is needed to get it right, and why we need to think about getting good infrastructure into the developing world (more equity, more business as a secondary benefit).

An interesting book. However, most of the writing is in short two and three paragraph articles that can get seem a bit unconnected at times.