Customer Reviews

Designing and Managing the Supply Chain 3e with Student CD

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Considering what others have said before me, I'm not sure that we have read the same book. Or maybe it's just my background, since I do come with considerable supply chain knowledge in my luggage prior to reading this book; I found this a very good book, and not disappointing at all. A bit perhaps, but I will get to that below.

Normally, in most supply chain books I have seen there is ample ink devoted to theories and concepts with a couple of examples thrown in next to illustrative and basic generic figures. Those are books that teach you concepts, but not necessarily how to run your own supply chain.

In this book, each chapter is based around several anecdotes of real life case examples that are meant to illustrate certain concepts, and everything in the chapter evolves around these examples. It is impossible to just read this book from beginning to end and get a sense of supply chain concepts and issues, you really have to follow through and do the math in the examples.

Seen from a manager's or CEO's perspective, you as the reader are invited to take part in the solution of the problem in the supply chain of said manager, by trying to understand how that particular supply chain works, and by calculating what to do next. Some of the anecdotes even read like suspense novels, and on occasion I really felt like wanting to skip the math and flip to the end to see how the story went...but then I would miss the point of how the problem was actually solved.

Having said that, I do agree that the content could have been better structured and laid out, making it easier to spot what this or that section is about. It is not very student-friendly if you are used to having everything served in teaspoon by teaspoon, as we say in Norway. It IS NOT a book for learning by reading and remembering. It IS a book for learning by doing, i.e. taking notes and calculating on your own. The undergraduate student may be overwhelmed by the book, a graduate student should not.

And to those reviewers who could not understand what the numbers in square brackets were...seriously, you can not have read many books in your career...those numbers simply refer to the same number in the list of references in the Bibliography at the end of the book. That is a very common way of referencing, which students should be familiar with.

I'm not sure if the author believes his style is better or just wanted to be different than traditional texts. Either way, it fails. Specifically, he does not explicitly state most formulas. He likes to embed the individual terms within paragraphs of text rather than clearly define the variables. The case studies used drone on and on. Ok, I understand that in real life we are given more information than we need, but jeez, no need to fill droves of pages with irrelevant information. Makes me believe he had a minimum book page quota to meet.

And the student CD was clearly an after thought or a ploy to charge a premium as there is very little on the CD and none of it usefull. Where are the homework data tables? Student notes?

This book is a big disapointment.

This book is very disappointing. I agree with the previous review. The book does not explain clearly the calculations as they are all embedded within the paragraph. How can ANYONE solve a math problem in a written way within a paragraph??!!
Also, a good book will have a clear example after every new idea. This book does not. It just goes on and on with no clear direction or any examples. It is the type of book that you keep turning the pages to see how many pages are left until you are done with the chapter.
Also, every time there is a new term they write [see 101] or [96] etc. I am assuming they mean page numbers by that? but so far I was not successful in finding these mysterious terms or any meaningful explanation for them. I always end up searching the terms through google
About the cases, I also agree with the previous review. They just go on and on and on with useless information.
Oh and yeah..the CD does not work on mac! So i don't even know how bad or good the CD.

The main strength of this book are the numerous case studies on the supply chains of real life companies (top-brand in some circumstances) that are rich in detail and relevance to the chapters. These include Amazon, IBM, MSFT, etc. This is actually a great history book on a lot of companies and industries.

Now, why 2 stars? Because this has to be one of the most poorly written books I have come across in a long time. It seems that no editor or proof reader was used to make this book readable. To name a few problems, the sections are disorganized, concepts are poorly defined (even interchangeable definitions are used), discussions are very shallow of mathematical or practical backing, etc.. The content of the book is OK, but it is presented in a very sloppy way. Although this is the only supply chain management book I have read so far, I am sure there must be better ones out there.

This book was required for my Supply Chain development class. It is a great resource, and an easy read. I'm sure I will use this book as a reference for years to come.

Pros:
- Covers a breadth of supply chain subjects.
- Convenient to have cases included in the book, so they don't have to be purchased separately.
- Some of the discussion questions at the back of the chapters are good learning tools.

Cons:
- Not particularly well written.
- Does not communicate some fundamental inventory concepts, such as Efficient Frontier and the Newsvendor problem.
- Not written from a practitioner's view. Written from the perspective of someone who makes a living selling a supply chain modeling tool and providing modeling services.
- Instructors CD is essentially the material from the book written on blue slides. The slide content is a real yawn to lecture from.
- What the heck do those "see [number]" references in the text mean?
- Very expensive.

Excellent to learn about Supply Chain, it is very complete, it covers all the areas of Supply Chain

This text is the industry standard for supply chain management. It is the place to start for preparation for APICS CSCP certification. The examples and case studies are excellent and appropriate.