Supply chains are faced with a rising complexity with manifold effects. Because of the strong link between a supply chain's complexity and its efficiency, supply chain complexity management becomes a major challenge of today's business management. Therefore logistics and the supply chain management can play a significant role in mastering and managing complexity. The new book, edited by Thorsten Blecker and Wolfgang Kersten, is exemplifying the current progress in complexity management. Separate chapters are dedicated to clarify complexity management in transportation, networks and supply chains. It offers important insights of global and flexible network modelling to manage complexity, complexity in supply chains - developing human resource strategy, performance measurement of green supply chain management, complexity in transportation by means of containers and air-cargos. The volume, written by well-known experts of supply chain management from all over the world, shows applicable solutions, practical examples and use cases to illustrate complexity management and its application in logistics and supply chain management. It presents the central perspectives for a modern complexity management in supply chains. Therefore the book offers a fundamental understanding for workable complexity management concept their implementation to practitioners. The book offers fundamental insights into actual problems of an general complexity management concept and their implementation to practitioners in industry, logistics, management, service sector, research and apprenticeship. In addition to this it gives a valuable insight to the status of complexity management also for lecturers and students.

Managing Complexity is the first book that clearly defines the concept of Complexity, explains how Complexity can be measured and tuned, and describes the seven key features of Complex Systems: ConnectivityAutonomyEmergencyNonequilibriumNon-linearitySelf-organisationCo-evolution The thesis of the book is that complexity of the environment in which we work and live offers new opportunities and that the best strategy for surviving and prospering under conditions of complexity is to develop adaptability to perpetually changing conditions. An effective method for designing adaptability into business processes using multi-agent technology is presented and illustrated by several extensive examples, including adaptive, real-time scheduling of taxis, see-going tankers, road transport, supply chains, railway trains, production processes and swarms of small space satellites. Additional case studies include adaptive servicing of the International Space Station; adaptive processing of design changes of large structures such as wings of the largest airliner in the world; dynamic data mining, knowledge discovery and distributed semantic processing. Finally, the book provides a foretaste of the next generation of complex issues, notably, The Internet of Things, Smart Cities, Digital Enterprises and Smart Logistics.

The world today faces global competition. The supply chain is a vital part of the globalization process. Presenting a global view of the scope and complexity of supply chain management, this book reflects the rapid change that has taken place within the supply chain and its environment. This third edition has been fully updated with recent changes in concepts, technology, and practice. Integration and collaboration are keywords in future competition. Firms must be agile and lean at the same time. The book gives an insightful overview of the conceptual foundations of the global supply chain, as well as current examples of the best practice of managing supply chains in a global context.

Everyone can impact the supply chain Supply Chain Management For Dummies helps you connect the dots between things like purchasing, logistics, and operations to see how the big picture is affected by seemingly isolated inefficiencies. Your business is a system, made of many moving parts that must synchronize to most efficiently meet the needs of your customers—and your shareholders. Interruptions in one area ripple throughout the entire operation, disrupting the careful coordination that makes businesses successful; that's where supply chain management (SCM) comes in. SCM means different things to different people, and many different models exist to meet the needs of different industries. This book focuses on the broadly-applicable Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, Return, and Enable, to describe the basic techniques and key concepts that keep businesses running smoothly. Whether you're in sales, HR, or product development, the decisions you make every day can impact the supply chain. This book shows you how to factor broader impact into your decision making process based on your place in the system. Improve processes by determining your metrics Choose the right software and implement appropriate automation Evaluate and mitigate risks at all steps in the supply chain Help your business function as a system to more effectively meet customer needs We tend to think of the supply chain as suppliers, logistics, and warehousing—but it's so much more than that. Every single person in your organization, from the mailroom to the C-suite, can work to enhance or hinder the flow. Supply Chain Management For Dummies shows you what you need to know to make sure your impact leads to positive outcomes.

For the guest editor Remko I. van Hoek, in the field of logistics the debate between the 'lean' thinkers and those who advocate 'agility' is still very much alive. This special issue follows the International Conference on Agility in Helsinki, Finland, and is a collection of some of the best of the fifty papers presented there. The papers touch on agility in regards to forecasting, manufacturing, simulation, ERP and Chinese sourcing. The result is that the concept of agility can be considered as a practical path forward, rather than just a topic of academic debate.

This book contains the proceedings as well as invited papers for the first annual conference of the UNESCO Unitwin Complex System Digital Campus (CSDC), which is an international initiative gathering 120 Universities on four continents, and structured in ten E-Departments. First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015 features chapters from the latest research results on theoretical questions of complex systems and their experimental domains. The content contained bridges the gap between the individual and the collective within complex systems science and new integrative sciences on topics such as: genes to organisms to ecosystems, atoms to materials to products, and digital media to the Internet. The conference breaks new ground through a dedicated video-conferencing system – a concept at the heart of the international UNESCO UniTwin, embracing scientists from low-income and distant countries. This book promotes an integrated system of research, education, and training. It also aims at contributing to global development by taking into account its social, economic, and cultural dimensions. First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015 will appeal to students and researchers working in the fields of complex systems, statistical physics, computational intelligence, and biological physics.

Optimize supply chains throughout their entire lifecycle: creation, growth, maturity, and decline! Reflecting up-to-the-minute "in-the-trenches" experience and pioneering research, this book illuminates the complex transformational processes associated with managing complex supply chains that incorporate multiple products and services within ever-changing networks. Marc J. Schniederjans and Stephen B. Legrand walk you through: starting, creating, and building new supply chains; then, realigning those supply chains for growth, adjusting to dynamic change, readjusting networks, building flexibility, and managing new supply chain risks. Next, they offer practical, realistic guidance for realigning "mature" supply chains, innovating, controlling costs; and smoothly managing declining demand. Throughout, they offer invaluable insights and tools for negotiating, measuring performance, anticipating change, improving agility and flexibility, meeting commitments to social responsibility and the law; and much more. Based on the authors' up-to-the minute supply chain experience and pioneering academic research, Reinventing the Supply Chain Life Cycle contains many real-world examples and interviews with executives from some of the world’s top organizations. It integrates content related to key certifications and offers valuable material that can be incorporated directly into existing supply chain practices, procedures, and policies.