Publisher's Synopsis
The best companies around the world are discovering a powerful new source of competitive advantage. It's called supply-chain management (SCM) and it encompasses all of those integrated activities that bring product to market and create satisfied customers. SCM is needed for various reasons: improving operations, better outsourcing, increasing profits, enhancing customer satisfaction, generating quality outcomes, tackling competitive pressures, increasing globalization, increasing importance of E-commerce, and growing complexity of supply chains. Supply chains are relatively easy to define for manufacturing industries, where each participant in the chain receives inputs from a set of suppliers, processes those inputs, and delivers them to a different set of customers. The supply chain includes suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and customers. The customers are the main focus of the chain, since the primary purpose of the existence of any supply chain is to satisfy customer needs, in the process generating profit for itself. SCM was initially related to the inventory management within a supply chain. This concept was later broadened to include management of all functions. It's difficult to maintain efficiency in managing supply chain without new technologies. The management of multiple flows of goods and information across complex networks of suppliers, carriers, freight forwarders, and other key players is a sizable task. Simulation modeling can help managing complexity, increase profitability, and improve customer service to enhance competitiveness. Supply Chain Management- Applications and Simulations highlights chronological prospective of SCM in terms of time frame in different areas of manufacturing and service industries, strategic and tactical issues in SCM; encompasses project and technology issues in supply chain and risk managements in supply chain. A simulation based flow is developed to take advantage of the best qualities of each method discussed to understand design, reliability, and yield in relation to how the product is used and how the effects of variability in the supply chain influence the outcome. Today, the largest RFID application aids companies and governments in supply chain management. RFID is being used to manage products through production, distribution and retail. Manufacturers can especially benefit from implementing RFID applications in supply chains because they can decrease costs associated with product tracking and inventory management and increase the accuracy and timeliness of inventory data. Experts say that early adaptors of RFID applications in supply chains have seen a significant increase in revenue. RFID Applications can be used to monitor and manage the movement of the finished products throughout a supply chain. RFDI tags can be attached directly to the items and materials or they can be attached to the containers that carry them. Pallets, trailers, totes, carts, cargo containers, and reusable transport items can all be tagged. Readers placed throughout a facility can monitor movement and location of inventory, thus providing real time data. This can be within a warehouse, a freight yard or within a retail location. RFID applications in the supply chain enable more frequent and accurate inventory counts. RFID applications in the supply chain can also decrease costs associated with inventory counting. In addition, RFID applications in fleet management have demonstrated significant ROI. RFID applications in fleet management enable a more cost-effective long-range tracking solution, global tracking of containers and cargo, reliable tracking of capital and inventory assets during transportation and increased security. By placing RFID tags on long range vehicles, trailers or other mobile assets, companies can gain visibility into their business' assets' utilization. Current Supply Chain Management techniques mostly rely on the barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies in order to keep track of the product from its assembly line to the final customer. A noted example of large-scale RFID usage is Wal-Mart's request that its top one hundred supplier introduce RFID tags for better tracking their products, distribute these products more efficiently and eliminate abnormal costs from the shipment and distribution to Wal-Mart. Although there are clear advantages of introducing such technologies in the product's lifecycle, small entities might encounter difficulties (for instance, lack of financing) in implementing such technologies on a larger scale, which limits the applicability of the mentioned technologies in revealing the changes in the supply chains due to the Mergers and Acquisitions activities. The best companies around the world are discovering a powerful new source of competitive advantage. It's called supply-chain management (SCM) and it encompasses all of those integrated activities that bring product to market and create satisfied customers. SCM is needed for various reasons: improving operations, better outsourcing, increasing profits, enhancing customer satisfaction, generating quality outcomes, tackling competitive pressures, increasing globalization, increasing importance of E-commerce, and growing complexity of supply chains. Supply chains are relatively easy to define for manufacturing industries, where each participant in the chain receives inputs from a set of suppliers, processes those inputs, and delivers them to a different set of customers. The supply chain includes suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and customers. The customers are the main focus of the chain, since the primary purpose of the existence of any supply chain is to satisfy customer needs, in the process generating profit for itself. SCM was initially related to the inventory management within a supply chain. This concept was later broadened to include management of all functions. It's difficult to maintain efficiency in managing supply chain without new technologies. The management of multiple flows of goods and information across complex networks of suppliers, carriers, freight forwarders, and other key players is a sizable task. Simulation modeling can help managing complexity, increase profitability, and improve customer service to enhance competitiveness. Supply Chain Management- Applications and Simulations highlights chronological prospective of SCM in terms of time frame in different areas of manufacturing and service industries, strategic and tactical issues in SCM; encompasses project and technology issues in supply chain and risk managements in supply chain. A simulation based flow is developed to take advantage of the best qualities of each method discussed to understand design, reliability, and yield in relation to how the product is used and how the effects of variability in the supply chain influence the outcome. Today, the largest RFID application aids companies and governments in supply chain management. RFID is being used to manage products through production, distribution and retail. Manufacturers can especially benefit from implementing RFID applications in supply chains because they can decrease costs associated with product tracking and inventory management and increase the accuracy and timeliness of inventory data. Experts say that early adaptors of RFID applications in supply chains have seen a significant increase in revenue. RFID Applications can be used to monitor and manage the movement of the finished products throughout a supply chain. RFDI tags can be attached directly to the items and materials or they can be attached to the containers that carry them. Pallets, trailers, totes, carts, cargo containers, and reusable transport items can all be tagged. Readers placed throughout a facility can monitor movement and location of inventory, thus providing real time data. This can be within a warehouse, a freight yard or within a retail location. RFID applications in the supply chain enable more frequent and accurate inventory counts. RFID applications in the supply chain can also decrease costs associated with inventory counting. In addition, RFID applications in fleet management have demonstrated significant ROI. RFID applications in fleet management enable a more cost-effective long-range tracking solution, global tracking of containers and cargo, reliable tracking of capital and inventory assets during transportation and increased security. By placing RFID tags on long range vehicles, trailers or other mobile assets, companies can gain visibility into their business' assets' utilization. Current Supply Chain Management techniques mostly rely on the barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies in order to keep track of the product from its assembly line to the final customer. A noted example of large-scale RFID usage is Wal-Mart's request that its top one hundred supplier introduce RFID tags for better tracking their products, distribute these products more efficiently and eliminate abnormal costs from the shipment and distribution to Wal-Mart. Although there are clear advantages of introducing such technologies in the product's lifecycle, small entities might encounter difficulties (for instance, lack of financing) in implementing such technologies on a larger scale, which limits the applicability of the mentioned technologies in revealing the changes in the supply chains due to the Mergers and Acquisitions activities. The best companies around the world are discovering a powerful new source of competitive advantage. It's called supply-chain management (SCM) and it encompasses all of those integrated activities that bring product to market and create satisfied customers. SCM is needed for various reasons: improving operations, better outsourcing, increasing profits, enhancing customer satisfaction, generating quality outcomes, tackling competitive pressures, increasing global
