Product Description: This book brings together the strategic role of the supply chain, key strategic drivers of supply chain performance, and the underlying tools and techniques for supply chain analysis. Students are able to articulate the strategic importance of supply chain thinking and support their ideas with evidence that can be built using models.
Excellent Book on SCM I am currently using this book in my Master of Professional Studies in Supply Chain Management program at Penn State University and I have found the book to be very useful. When I compare this textbook with the books I used when I completed my MBA in 2003, I feel this textbook is by far one of the best in regards to content and useful information. The only suggestion I would make is that the authors should include a CD with Excel templates for all of the models in the book.
Also, do not think of this book as only being useful if you're a student. I used this book while I was managing Dell's supply chain and I find myself referring to the book now that I am a consultant.
A Brilliant Analysis of Three "Key" Interrelationships
As Sunil Chopra and Peter Meindl explain in their Preface, the purpose of their book is to help those who read it to "develop an understanding of the following key areas and their interrelationships: the strategic role of a supply chain, the key strategic drivers of supply chain performance, and [the] analytical methodologies for supply chain analysis." I think their material will be of greatest interest and value to executives who are now centrally involved in management of larger organizations' supply chains. However, I think their book will also be of substantial benefit to others who are directly or indirectly involved as strategic allies in those supply chains, those who can also help to ensure effective management of them.
Chopra and Meindl carefully organize their material as follows:
Part I: Building a Strategic Framework to Analyze Supply Chains Part II: Designing the Supply Chain Network Part III: Planning Demand and Supply in a Supply Chain Part IV: Planning and Managing Inventories in a Supply Chain Part V: Designing and Planning Transportation Networks Part VI: Managing Cross-Functional Drivers in a Supply Chain
I was especially interested in the final part because one of the greatest challenges when establishing and then sustaining an effective supply chain is to take into full account the need to get all participants in proper alignment, especially when cross-functional resources to achieve to achieve mutually-beneficial results. In Part VI, Chopra and Meindl respond to questions such as these:
1. What is the role of sourcing? 2. How to achieve design collaboration? 3. What are the most important "drivers" of pricing and revenue management? 4. What is IT's role? 5. What does effective risk management require? 6. What are the major barriers to effective coordination? 7. How to build strategic partnerships and trust between and among stakeholders?
Many readers (I among them) will also appreciate the provision of a "Summary of Learning Objectives" and "Discussion Questions" at the conclusion of each of the 17 chapters. Credit Chopra and Meindl with fully achieving their objectives when they set out to write this book: To help their readers to understand the strategic role of a supply chain, the key strategic drivers of supply chain performance, and the analytic methodologies for supply chain analysis.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
