It’s time to get your head in the cloud! In today’s business environment, more and more people are requesting cloud-based solutions to help solve their business challenges. So how can you not only anticipate your clients’ needs but also keep ahead of the curve to ensure their goals stay on track? With the help of this accessible book, you’ll get a clear sense of cloud computing and understand how to communicate the benefits, drawbacks, and options to your clients so they can make the best choices for their unique needs. Plus, case studies give you the opportunity to relate real-life examples of how the latest technologies are giving organizations worldwide the opportunity to thrive as supply chain solutions in the cloud. Demonstrates how improvements in forecasting, collaboration, and inventory optimization can lead to cost savings Explores why cloud computing is becoming increasingly important Takes a close look at the types of cloud computing Makes sense of demand-driven forecasting using Amazon's cloud Whether you work in management, business, or IT, this is the dog-eared reference you’ll want to keep close by as you continue making sense of the cloud.

This book aims to identify and describe the practical key components of demand driven supply chains, and based on these components, develops a structured and integrated assessment framework that companies can use to assess their current and desired future supply chain states in light of the Demand Driven Supply Chain (DDSC) concepts. Another contribution of the book is the structured framework developed to design a supply chain strategy, which will consider the DDSC assessment results as one of the key inputs, and will support the implementation of the opportunities identified during the assessment. The framework presented in this book was applied in different supply chain operations of a global CPG company to validate the methodology and formalize an action plan to allow these operations move towards a DDSC. Results show clear opportunities to improve supply chain operation and become more demand driven.

"An intuitive proven planning and execution method for today's complex and volatile supply chains"--Cover.

Many manufacturing and distribution companies are moving from the traditional 'forecast push MRP' to demand-driven supply chain management (SCM). Demand-driven SCM is an 'end-to-end' supply chain planning and replenishment process that enables companies to achieve their planned service levels from up to half the average level of inventory and requiring significantly less throughput capacity - irrespective of the level of demand volatility or lead-time length. Demand-Driven Supply Chain Management is the go-to source for industry supply chain/operations executives and students. It describes the 'what, how and why' of the demand-driven SCM process. The key themes in the book are: what is demand-driven? why is demand-driven so effective? how to operate a demand-driven supply chain? and how to adopt the demand-driven process in your company? Readers can quickly grasp the essential concepts from one of numerous self-contained sections that present the book's key concepts from different perspectives. Online resources available include full-colour figures.

While there are many books written on the basics of the "supply" side of the supply chain (i.e. strategic sourcing, sourcing/procurement, and purchasing), there hasn’t been much written on those areas from a Lean perspective. Considering that supply chain costs, primarily procurement and transportation, can range from 50 to 70% of sales, it's surprising that this area has not been fully explored. As a result, some companies tend to place too much emphasis on the traditional focus of reducing material costs instead of process improvement. Lean Demand-Driven Procurement: How to Apply Lean Thinking to Your Supply Management Process details the basic supply management concepts and processes (i.e. sourcing, procurement, and purchasing) in an easy-to-understand format in combination with various process improvement tools, methodologies, best practices, examples, and cases written from a Lean perspective. It focuses and pinpoints ways to identify waste on the supply side through improved processes and, in some cases, technology. Applying Lean principles to procurement and purchasing processes identies non-traditional sources of waste, and in some cases, creates a paradigm shift that results in additional benets to the entire supply chain.

When you invest millions on new systems you don't want yesterday's solutions. You need a global view of end-to-end material, information, and financial flows. Managers today have the same concerns managers had last year, 10 years ago, or 50 years ago: products, markets, people and skills operations, and finance. New supply chain management processe

Master a complete, five-step roadmap for leveraging Big Data and analytics to gain unprecedented competitive advantage from your supply chain. Using Big Data, pioneers such as Amazon, UPS, and Wal-Mart are gaining unprecedented mastery over their supply chains. They are achieving greater visibility into inventory levels, order fulfillment rates, material and product delivery… using predictive data analytics to match supply with demand; leveraging new planning strengths to optimize their sales channel strategies; optimizing supply chain strategy and competitive priorities; even launching powerful new ventures. Despite these opportunities, many supply chain operations are gaining limited or no value from Big Data. In Big Data Driven Supply Chain Management, Nada Sanders presents a systematic five-step framework for using Big Data in supply chains. You'll learn best practices for segmenting and analyzing customers, defining competitive priorities for each segment, aligning functions behind strategy, dissolving organizational boundaries to sense demand and make better decisions, and choose the right metrics to support all of this. Using these techniques, you can overcome the widespread obstacles to making the most of Big Data in your supply chain — and earn big profits from the data you're already generating. For all executives, managers, and analysts interested in using Big Data technologies to improve supply chain performance.