News Release

October 10, 2006

The Second Edition of the Handbook of Supply Chain Management is now available.

New, Expanded 2nd Edition!
Handbook of Supply Chain Management, 2nd Edition
James B. Ayers
Auerbach Publications
April 2006
640 pages, ISBN: 0849331609, Cat. #: AU3160
Available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com

Continuing a best-selling tradition, the Handbook of Supply Chain Management, Second Edition features additional details of quality function deployment or QFD, expanded coverage of the PDCA cycle, new emphasis on the sequencing of organization changes, supply chain project management, and more information on demand-driven supply chain concepts. It explores techniques in strategic planning and operations, emphasizing changing supply chains and using case studies to illustrate applications of these techniques. The author also discusses multiple industries and services, manufacturing and distribution operations, product issues, knowledge management, software selection, lean enterprises, operational reduction, network modeling, and more.

This volume introduces or emphasizes the supply chain management topics that have grown in visibility or prominence since the publication of the first edition. These include: drivers of supply chain change; project management approaches for executing supply chain change; globalization and supply chains; the importance of spheres (businesses within a business) in designing supply chains; the contribution of backbone/enabling processes within an organization; and the “lean” and six sigma movements and their implications for SCM.

For more information, download our 4-page descriptive brochure and our summary of Best SCM Practices, Concepts & Tools.

What’s New

Supply chain management (SCM) disciplines have produced a flood of new concepts, methods, and tools; if applied wisely, they will improve results. A resource that weeds out and consolidates this new information will lower the business risk of implementing change.

Interpreting models and viewpoints from many fields into a supply chain context, Handbook of Supply Chain Management, Second Edition recommends a plan for acting on these insights, reducing confusion and making the work of supply chain managers both faster and more on target with the needs of their companies. Divided into four parts, this volume begins by providing an overview that traces the evolution of concepts that define SCM. It then establishes the role of SCM in improving operations and the ability of businesses to compete.

Section II confronts management with “The Supply Chain Challenge,” made up of five tasks that enable management to find solutions to problems and generate ideas for implementing a supply chain improvement project. Section III describes how to perform critical supply chain improvement tasks, including activities that create a plan as well as tasks needed to implement the plan.

The book concludes with chapters devoted to case studies; each adds reality to theoretical frameworks. They illustrate successful and not-so-successful endeavors across the supply chain spectrum.