The rules of new product development have changed. The most fundamental nature of supply and demand has shifted and markets have undergone a reversal. Users are in control now, determining the success and failure of every company and product in the market. Companies that underestimate the implications of this shift are guaranteed to fail, wasting time and resources pursuing products the market will not accept. Demand Horizon is a new mental model for understanding and adapting to the demand-driven economy. It’s a framework for making sense of the new rules in product creation, offering both strategic understanding and practical actions for adapting to the new rules of business. Written by Gerry Campbell, an accomplished executive, entrepreneur and product creator, Demand Horizon illuminates the techniques and approaches that have enabled him to create patented products that are used by every person on earth who uses a search engine, social networking site or smartphone.

Information Control Problems in Manufacturing 2006 contains the Proceedings of the 12th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM'2006). This symposium took place in Saint Etienne, France, on May 17-19 2006. INCOM is a tri-annual event of symposia series organized by IFAC and it is promoted by the IFAC Technical Committee on Manufacturing Plant Control. The purpose of the symposium INCOM'2006 was to offer a forum to present the state-of-the-art in international research and development work, with special emphasis on the applications of optimisation methods, automation and IT technologies in the control of manufacturing plants and the entire supply chain within the enterprise. The symposium stressed the scientific challenges and issues, covering the whole product and processes life cycle, from the design through the manufacturing and maintenance, to the distribution and service. INCOM'2006 Technical Program also included a special event on Innovative Engineering Techniques in Healthcare Delivery. The application of engineering and IT methods in medicine is a rapidly growing field with many opportunities for innovation. The Proceedings are composed of 3 volumes: Volume 1 - Information Systems, Control & Interoperability Volume 2 - Industrial Engineering Volume 3 - Operational Research * 3-volume set, containing 362 carefully reviewed and selected papers * presenting the state-of-the-art in international research and development in Information Control problems in Manufacturing

Incorporating 25 years of sales forecasting management research with more than 400 companies, Sales Forecasting Management, Second Edition is the first text to truly integrate the theory and practice of sales forecasting management. This research includes the personal experiences of John T. Mentzer and Mark A. Moon in advising companies how to improve their sales forecasting management practices. Their program of research includes two major surveys of companies' sales forecasting practices, a two-year, in-depth study of sales forecasting management practices of 20 major companies, and an ongoing study of how to apply the findings from the two-year study to conducting sales forecasting audits of additional companies. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the techniques and applications of sales forecasting analysis, combined with a managerial focus to give managers and users of the sales forecasting function a clear understanding of the forecasting needs of all business functions.

As business processes are crucial success factors for companies, software-based Business Process Management (BPM) is becoming more and more important. In this area SAP, the market leader for enterprise application software, has already gathered substantial experience. For the characterization, modeling and especially the optimization of business processes, SAP’s consultants use their own BPM approach. In addition to their considerable methodological know-how, the consultants’ profound knowledge of the industries facilitates the focus on core and business-critical processes. This book examines the current market situation, as well as the specific challenges and trends for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. It also explains business process management basics and the specific SAP Consulting methodology, before illustrating the use of such methods and procedures with sample industry-specific core business processes. With the help of these examples from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, SAP Consulting provides methodological guidelines on how Business Process Management can be used in practice to optimize business processes and make adjustments in response to constantly changing economic and environmental factors.

The Advanced Planner and Optimiser (APO) is the software from SAP dedicated to supply chain management. This book addresses the question of how to implement APO in a company. It is written from a long years' experience in implementation projects and provides project managers and team members with the necessary know-how for a successful implementation project. The focus is on introducing modeling approaches and explaining the structure and interdependencies of systems, modules and entities of APO. Another concern is the integration with the R/3 system(s), both technically and from a process point of view. Since APO projects differ significantly from other SAP projects, some key issues and common mistakes concerning project management are covered.

A proven,innovative approach to meeting customer demand Combining an intensive focus on customer/marketplace demands with innovative technology tools developed to execute demand chain planning, Managing the Demand-Supply Chain sets forth a powerful new model for fulfilling customer demand in the best possible way. Four of the world's leading demand chain researchers and implementers demonstrate how select high-tech companies, such as Nokia and Dell, have used the demand chain approach to differentiate their value offerings and delight their customers. The authors introduce three exciting new demand chain tools. "Demand breakpoint" identifies the point where value is significantly changed by operations; "value offering point" or VOP is the catalyst to demand chain activity; and "microcosms" executes demand chain strategies. The authors show managers how to use these tools to implement technology solutions that drive top performance. Special features of Managing the Demand-Supply Chain include: The best thinking from acknowledged leaders in the field An extended case study of Nokia's successful demand chain management implementation Numerous sidebars detailing real-world implementation issues Managing the Demand-Supply Chain is an indispensable resource for managers who want to optimize operational effectiveness, spur innovation, and achieve and sustain excellence in exceeding customer expectations.

Strategic Planning for the Sustainable Production of Biofuels presents several optimization models for the design and planning of sustainable biorefinery supply chains, including issues surrounding the potential of biomass feedstocks in multiple harvesting sites, availability and seasonality of biomass resources, different potential geographical locations for processing plants that produce multiple products using diverse production technologies, economies of scale for production technologies, demands and prices of multiple products, locations of storage facilities, and a number of transportation modes. Sustainability considerations are incorporated into the proposed models by including simultaneous economic, environmental and social performance in the evaluation of the supply chain designs. - Covers different optimization models for the strategic planning of biorefining systems - Includes the GAMS and MATLAB codes for solving various problems - Considers sustainability criteria in the presented models - Presents different approaches for obtained trade-off solutions - Provides general software that can be used for solving different problems