Customer Reviews

Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide

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2 star:		(1)
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I needed to get up to speed quickly on Supply Chains as I have now taken on management duties for an area that includes transport, shipping, etc. With no background (I come from marketing) the discussions seemed like an alien language and I felt I couldn't be effective, and worse, couldn't tell if what I was hearing was valid or excuses.

This book introduced me to the topic and helped me understand the key issues quickly. I still am not an expert on the field, but feel capable of following the issues and bringing judgement to the decisions I must make.

Overall, I would rate this book as an excellent way to parachute into a new subject and quickly learn the lay of the land. I feel that with this background I can delve more deeply into the subject with other more technical texts.

Many years ago, I picked up Taylor's _Object Technolog: A Manager's Guide_. I choose it, not because I didn't have the techical background to read the deep engineering treatments of the same topic, but because I wanted to save myself the time of ponderously sifting through arcane details to identify the key issues and important problems. With the invaluable map provided by that book, I was able to explore the details relevant to my circumstances much more efficiently. It was such a good map, that I kept copies in my briefcase to give to clients who needed the same type of conceptual guidance to wrap their heads around what was something of a revolution at the time.

_Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide_ is the same type of indispensable guide for navigating the world of supply chains. In the interests of full disclosure, I was one of the editorial reviewers of this book and Taylor was kind enough to take some of my suggestions. However, I read through several iterations and could have begged off at any point, but every iteration delivered new value. I've helped architect supply chain management software and have a fairly extensive background in the mathematic techniques used in supply chain analysis, so there weren't many individual facts in the book that I didn't already know. It was the orchestration of these facts and the conceptual synthesis that kept me reading every revision.

Even though I knew the facts, the book helped me see relationships that I'd missed and develop a higher level understanding of the challenges. This process inspired several good software product ideas. Moreover, I suddenly understood how I should be explaining these concepts to my clients. No doubt, copies of this book will also find their way into my briefcase for distribution.

This book won't improve on expert-level knowledge. In fact, I was amused to see one of the other reviewers here, who appeared to be such an expert, confuse Taylor with another author of the same name who focuses on detailed supply chain methdologies. But experts would do well to use it as an example of how to explain the topic to the very large audience of non-experts who need to understand how to improve the execution of supply chains they particpate in every single day. Of course, members of this vast pool of supply chain participants can just go directly to the source and read this book.

A decade ago, I came across one of David Taylor's books on object technology. At the time, I had written and consulted on the topic extensively. However, reading his first "manager's guide" I felt like I imagine Salieri felt when he first encountered Mozart. The clarity of Taylor's writing (not to be confused with another David Taylor who has also written on Supply Chains) and the beautifully illustrated format put it clearly above the competition. For years, I have recommended his work to my clients and students. Now, with Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide, he's done it again.

As the title indicates, the book is written for a manager rather than a practitioner, and it delivers. Taylor, whose consulting work gives him extensive insights regarding the needs and knowledge of managers, has applied that wisdom to deliver another outstanding reference. In particular, I enjoyed his coverage of business modeling and the significance of collaboration. In my opinion, these sections alone would justify the purchase. Combine them with thorough discussions of management, measurement, and how the software components fit together, and the result is a valuable standalone tutorial and desk reference.

Unless you are an established authority on supply chains - the type of person who doesn't need to buy a book on the topic before giving a keynote, for example - you can't help but enjoy and learn something from this one.

This book tackles the breath of supply chain issues, from fulfillment to forecasting, and integrates them into a comprehensible whole. I particularly liked the use of a matrix that showed design, planning and operations on one axis, and supply side, demand side, and overall performance on the other axis. Taylor devotes an entire section of the book to measuring and improving supply chains. This information alone was worth the purchase price.
But the book also does something I didn't think possible. It made areas like logistics new and interesting. Part of this happened because it was written in a clear and lucid style rarely found in business books. Part of it happened because of the book's structure. Taylor provides a high-level outline (something he calls "fast track" which accompanies every paragraph) and illustrates most of the concepts (there must be hundreds of easy-to- understand diagrams). You can dive in where you want and get the information you need.
While there are a lot of books on aspects of supply chains, I haven't found anything that pulled so many critical concepts together. This is a source book I expect to keep on my bookshelf to return to again and again.

This is one of the best overviews of the supply chain I have ever read. If you are lookig to gain an understanding of supply chain issues and terms, this is the book for you.

I'm a Chinese reader. Based on my experience, the importance of supply chain is yet to be recognized and I can hardly find any good books on subject of supply chain. Many of the books are to confuse readers. I'm more than delighted when I got a chance to read this book and aha, this is the one I've been looking for for a long time. It's simple, easy to understand and talk the real thing. I strongly believe that managers working in the field of supply chain will benefit from this book by conceptualizing and having a broader and higher view of their working model and practice.

I needed some fresh Supply Chain Management material for a keynote and went to Borders and B&N only to find nothing. I mean absolutely nothing on the subject! Well, as the time was ticking, got this book online with an overnight shipping. It arrived today, and to my biggest disappointment the book did not make it for me. Here is why:

1. The author obviously targets the audience that heard an echo of Supply Chains and Logistics, and now wants to broaden horizons. Much like the famous "Dummies" series would have presented the Internet to the elderly.

2. The author spends entire Part I talking about Supply Chain challenges modern organizations face. It sounds much like a thesis... have to introduce the subject and establish the case. Man, the case has already been established long time ago. It's like telling people why they need toilet paper, pardon the analogy. This is 68 out of 316 pages.

3. The concepts of Supply Chain are ambiguously described, without any concrete how-to advice and why-do-it analysis. This book is not going to help you, if you are looking for solid Supply Chain Management methodology. It sort of combines everything under the sun that relates to it and then skims through, much like an executive summary. It can give you an idea of the Supply Chain territory and related subjects.

4. Most of examples (unsubstantiated) that I found are in Part I. When you go further in chapters, examples disappear. The author either does not have enough hands-on experience (typical for professional academicians), or intentionally omitted that from the book. As a result, the story telling is not as credible as it could have been. It's like implying: "Trust me, I have a PhD; therefore, I know what I'm talking about."

In conclusion, this book may be sufficient for some, but certainly not for my purposes. Needless to say, the book is going back.

Hope this review will help readers like me avoid this book, and readers like executives and college undergrads appreciate the introductory style that covers a lot of Supply Chain concepts with very simple graphics. The key is to know what you need.

David Taylor's book, Supply Chains: A Manager's Guide, is undoubtedly the best non-mathematical book on the subject, and one of the best three books - mathematical or otherwise - along with the books by Simchi-Levi et al. and by Chopra & Meindl. The clarity, simplicity, relevance, and breadth are spectacular, and the readability is simply unmatched. I plan to use this book in my MBA and executive courses as a required text, supplemented with case studies, simulations, and practical projects.