Are you Really Closing your Supply Chain?: My Research my Choice. Part I (Forward Supply Chain Management)

This book is aimed at an important and underserved niche within supply chain management education and application: closed loop supply chain management where the product travels from cradle to cradle and not to grave. Products get a new life or become hybrid (combination of old and new) as it travels down the forward line to customers and back to the starting point through the reverse line from customers and again back to customers through forward line. All supply chain professionals need to understand this for their own survival in today’s competitive world. This book is based on the research work carried out by the author for nearly four years in the Department of Management Studies of Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India and is meant to guide the practitioners (especially original equipment suppliers for especially auto parts) towards design of models, analysis of the same, drawing insights from them and ultimately providing superior service to customers. The author hopes to bring out the entire book in three parts and the first part of the series describes what is supply chain or forward supply chain to be precise, its evolution, motivation behind it, design and structure of the same and the way forward. Reverse supply chain and Closed loop supply chain integrating both forward and reverse chains would be taken up in the remaining two parts. This book is unlike any text book on Supply chain and is meant for general public as well as professionals and students who would like to have a general knowledge of the subject without going through complicated theories and problems. The dialogue between colleagues in between hope would help the readers get rid of monotony and a feel of reality.