An expert offers a set of rules that will help managers achieve dramatic improvements in operations performance. In recent years, management gurus have urged businesses to adopt such strategies as just-in-time, lean manufacturing, offshoring, and frequent deliveries to retail outlets. But today, these much-touted strategies may be risky. Global financial turmoil, rising labor costs in developing countries, and huge volatility in the price of oil and other commodities can disrupt a company's entire supply chain and threaten its ability to compete. In Operations Rules, David Simchi-Levi identifies the crucial element in a company's success: the link between the value it provides its customers and its operations strategies. And he offers a set of scientifically and empirically based rules that management can follow to achieve a quantum leap in operations performance. Flexibility, says Simchi-Levi, is the single most important capability that allows firms to innovate in their operations and supply chain strategies. A small investment in flexibility can achieve almost all the benefits of full flexibility. And successful companies do not all pursue the same strategies. Amazon and Wal-Mart, for example, are direct competitors but each focuses on a different market channel and provides a unique customer value proposition—Amazon, large selection and reliable fulfillment; Wal-Mart, low prices—that directly aligns with its operations strategy. Simchi-Levi's rules—regarding such issues as channels, price, product characteristics, value-added service, procurement strategy, and information technolog—-transform operations and supply chain management from an undertaking based on gut feeling and anecdotes to a science.

This handbook provides a single comprehensive guide to the many areas of international law which are relevant to the planning and conduct of contemporary military operations. It also serves as an educational tool and academic reference for those in the classroom to the war zone.

Since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of “asymmetric” threats like terrorism, the military has been increasingly entrusted with tasks traditionally belonging to the police. This development is visible through the new challenges posed to modern Peace Support Operations (PSO), intended as an umbrella definition covering different types of post-conflict peace operations, be these mandated under Chapter VI or Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, with either peace-keeping, peace-enforcing or even peace-building goals. The aim of this volume is primarily to provide guidance, in the format of a handbook, to those deployed in the field and who are confronted with legal issues. In order to achieve this goal, the handbook is structured as follows: after this introduction, Part II addresses the general question whether law enforcement shall be a PSO task. Law enforcement is perceived by some states as a matter of self-defense.Part III then addresses the limits and possibilities of law enforcement by PSO.The discussion continues with Part IV, which provides some practical tools for those deployed to the field. Part V focuses instead on law enforcement within PSO, illustrating problems related to the prosecution of members of PSO forces suspected of illegal activities, and Part VI then draws the conclusions.

The book systematically analyses rules of engagement (ROE), a crucial component of the legal framework in which every soldier operates. The book explains how such rules operate in both the legal context and military operational world, and how ROE are applied in practice.

The Code of federal regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal register by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government.

The legal position of visiting forces transcends domestic and international law and is of growing importance in our increasingly globalized and insecure world. 'In area' and 'out of area' operations, both for the purpose of establishing and maintaining peace and in connection with the conduct of other military operations and training, are likely to become more frequent for a variety of reasons. Finding where the applicable law places the balance between the interests, sensitivities and needs of the host state and the requirements, often practical in nature, of the visiting force is a key objective in ensuring that the relationship between hosts and 'guests' is and remains harmonious. All of this must be achieved in an increasingly complex legal environment. This fully updated second edition of The Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces addresses the issues surrounding visiting forces and provides a full overview of the legal framework in which they operate. Through an analysis of jurisprudence and historical developments, it offers a comparative commentary to the UN, NATO, and other SOFA rules. The Handbook then continues its analysis through cases studies of visiting forces in key countries, including a fully updated chapter on Afghanistan that considers the various stages of the conflict, before offering conclusions on the current state of the law and its likely future development.