Distribution Planning and Control : Managing in the Era of Supply Chain Management

When work began on the first volume ofthis text in 1992, the science of dis­ tribution management was still very much a backwater of general manage­ ment and academic thought. While most of the body of knowledge associated with calculating EOQs, fair-shares inventory deployment, productivity curves, and other operations management techniques had long been solidly established, new thinking about distribution management had taken a definite back-seat to the then dominant interest in Lean thinking, quality management, and business process reengineering and their impact on manufacturing and service organizations. For the most part, discussion relating to the distri­ bution function centered on a fairly recent concept called Logistics Manage­ ment. But, despite talk of how logistics could be used to integrate internal and external business functions and even be considered a source of com­ petitive advantage on its own, most of the focus remained on how companies could utilize operations management techniques to optimize the traditional day-to-day shipping and receiving functions in order to achieve cost contain­ ment and customer fulfillment objectives. In the end, distribution manage­ ment was, for the most part, still considered a dreary science, concerned with oftransportation rates and cost trade-offs. expediting and the tedious calculus Today, the science of distribution has become perhaps one of the most im­ portant and exciting disciplines in the management of business.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century it has become increasingly clear, that to remain competitive in today's emerging global markets, companies can no longer depend on their own core strengths to drive marketplace leadership, but must look to their supply chains for new avenues of cost reduction and innovation. Success in managing these chains of channel trading partners requires a new view of distribution and logistics management. The objective of Distribution: Planning and Control, Second Edition is not only to discover the roots and detail the techniques of channel management, but also to explore the impact of the merger of the concept of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Internet technologies on all aspects of internal business and supply channel management.

Following a traditional planning and control methodology, the text seeks to detail for the student of distribution and logistics how SCM and twenty-first century technologies are applied to managing top management strategic planning, operations planning, and operations execution. The book contains chapters on business planning, forecasting, demand, operations and channel planning (DO&CP), inventory management, statistical and Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) inventory control, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), warehousing and transportation. In addition full chapters are allocated to international distribution and today's information technology concepts and application architectures.

Distribution: Planning and Control, Second Edition provides academic, practitioner, and consulting audiences with a comprehensive text on the critical issues confronting logistics and SCM today. Containing timely information and targeted examples of real-world business applications, Distribution illustrates how manufacturers, wholesale, and retail distributors are leveraging SCM and Internet technologies to attain new unbeatable avenues of customer value through the creation of highly integrated, agile supply chain partnerships.