Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning and Operations (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Peter Meindl (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

For advanced undergraduate and MBA courses in Supply Chain Management. This text brings together the strategic role of the supply chain, key managerial concepts in supply chain management, and the tools and techniques for supply chain design and planning. Every chapter gives suggestions that managers can use in practice. *The strategic importance of good supply chain design and management for every firm. *Helps students visualize how good supply chain design and management can be a competitive advantage for a firm, and understand how weaknesses in supply chain design and management can hurt the firm. *Presents methods (called levers and drivers) that are available when designing and managing a supply chain are described - Clearly spells out how these drivers may be used at the supply chain design, planning, and operation stages to improve performance. *Logistics and supply chain tools and techniques - Stresses the managerial context in which the tools are used and the managerial levers for improvement that they support. *Extensive use of Excel - To illustrate all methodologies. *Discussion of e-commerce and information technology - In the context of supply chain management. *Many solved examples. *Cases - Written by the authors specifically for this text.

From the Inside Flap

Preface

This book has grown from a course on supply chain management taught to second-year MBA students at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. The goal of this class is to cover not only high-level supply chain strategy and concepts, but also to give students a solid understanding of the analytical tools necessary to solve supply chain problems. With this class goal in mind, our objective was to create a book that would develop an understanding of the following three key areas and their interrelationships:

The strategic role of the supply chain Key drivers of supply chain performance Analytical tools and techniques for supply chain analysis

Our first objective in this book is for the reader to learn the strategic importance of good supply chain design, planning, and operation for every firm. The reader will be able to understand and visualize how good supply chain management can be a competitive advantage for a firm. Similarly, a reader should understand how weaknesses in supply chain design, planning, and operation can hurt the performance of a firm. We use several examples to illustrate this idea and develop a strategic framework for supply chain management.

Within the strategic framework we identify inventory, transportation, information, and facilities as the key drivers of supply chain performance. Our second goal in the book is to convey how these drivers may be used on a conceptual level during supply chain design, planning, and operation to improve performance. For each driver of supply chain performance, our goal is to provide readers with practical managerial levers and concepts that may be used to improve supply chain performance.

Utilizing these managerial levers optimally during the design, planning, and operational phases requires knowledge of logistics and supply chain methodologies. Our third goal is to give the reader knowledge of these methodologies. Every methodological discussion is illustrated with its application in Excel. When discussing methodologies and techniques, we stress the managerial context in which they are used and the managerial levers for improvement that they support.

The strategic framework and concepts discussed in the book are tied together through a variety of examples that show how a combination of concepts is needed to achieve significant increases in performance. There is a particular focus on the analysis of e-business and how it can help firms in different industries improve their supply chain performance.

The book is targeted toward an academic as well as a practitioner audience. On the academic side, it should be appropriate for MBA, engineering management, or senior undergraduate courses in logistics and supply chain management. It should also serve as a suitable reference for both concepts as well as methodology for practitioners in consulting as well as industry.

There are many people we would like to thank who helped us throughout this process. We thank the reviewers whose suggestions significantly improved the book: James Noble, University of Missouri-Columbia; Sime Curkovic, Western Michigan University; Effie Stavrulaki, Penn State University; and James K. Higginson, University of Waterloo (Ontario). We are grateful to the students at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management who suffered through typo-ridden drafts of earlier versions of the book. Specially, we thank Christoph Roettelle and Vikas Vats for carefully reviewing several chapters and solving problems at the end of chapters. Our developmental editor, Libby Rubenstein, who read all our writing with a critical eye and raised all the right issues, was instrumental in improving the book. The book is much better because of her involvement. We would also like to thank our editor Tom Tucker and the staff at Prentice-Hall for their effort with the book. Finally, we'd like to thank you, our readers, for reading and using this book. We hope it contributes to all your efforts to improve the performance of companies and supply chains throughout the world.

Sunil Chopra
Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Northwestern University

Peter Meindl
i2 Technologies

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; United States ed edition (December 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130264652
• ISBN-13: 978-0130264657
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #396,217 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tactical approach for Supply Chain, February 10, 2001

By	Sarawoot Chittratanawat (Bangkok, THAILAND) - See all my reviews

While Handfield and Nichols book may be over-introductory, the better analytical book must be "Designing and Managing the Supply Chain" by Simchi-Levi (1999). Some researchers want more mathematics might jump to "Logic of Logistics" by Simchi-Levi directly. To fill the gap of those 3 books (Handfield vs. Simchi-Levi (SCM) vs. Simchi-Levi (Logic of Logistics), Chopra and Meindl compile almost every issues in Supply Chain Management (SCM) that you can find in publications in this single book. This book is the best compromise between tactics and strategics. Cases and analysis are presented with respect to the topic of each chapter. Only high school mathematics are more than enough to understand the analytical tools they proposed. Readers may opt for this book either the first book in SCM or supplementary book for your further research/study. Chopra and Medindl book is a good support to your "Design and Managing SCM" by Simchi-Levi and I think it can be substituted if you need only one book. Good for both practitioners and educators.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CLEAR AND CONCISE TEXT WITH GOOD CASES, March 12, 2001

By A Customer

Although this book is written more for MBA students, the flow and texture of this book should be well-received by those who are not at post-graduate level. For practising managers, like me, I find a great deal of my knowledge gap is filled when reading this book. As the first reviewer mentioned, this book complements a rudimentary text and a more detailed one available in the market, perhaps I may add that it also compliments well with a latest supply chain textbook "Modeling The Supply Chain" which also pairs well with Chopra and Meindl's book because the former offers quite a good spectrum of case studies that supports the text. Some of the numerical exercises seem to come from live cases, too, which led me to appreciate that exercises built in this text are not neccessarily academic ones. I strongly recommend this to international practitioners and students alike since the cases that flow along with the textbook are of international genre.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book overall but..., January 7, 2003

By	AR PSU "aratpennstate" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews

I refered and used this book in 2 grad level courses. The first was a business school course on SCM (with an above average quantitative focus for a B-school course) and again for a fully quatitative SC Engineering course. While I was initially very impressed with the book, using this over 2 semesters has raised a few gripes.

For the qualitative issues on SCM {make no mistake, these 'fluff' aspects are very important} there is no other equal. Chopra and Meindl do an outstanding and comprehensive job. They also bring out the importance of using scientific, quantitative techniques for SCM. This however is where my gripes start.

Having brought out the importance of quantitative tools for use in SCM, they do only a moderate job on explaining these tools. For example, the chapter on forecasting (only the most simple and commonly used models are explained) is unnnecessarily complex and confusing. The topics covered are adequete but need revision. Treatment of inventory management also could be more detailed and better explained.

This is an excellent book but for more comprehensive learning (if you want an understanding of the quantitative aspects too), I think this book needs supplementing (say with course notes) or another book like "Modeling the Supply Chain" by Shapiro.