Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 4th Edition

LOGISTIC S & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

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periods of time are consumed at the interfaces between adjacent stages in the

total process and in inefficiently performed procedures.

Because no one department or individual manager has complete visibility of the

total logistics process, it is often the case that major opportunities for time reduc-

tion across the pipeline as a whole are not recognised. One electronics company

in Europe did not realise for many years that, although it had reduced its through-

put time in the factory from days down to hours, finished inventory was still sitting

in the warehouse for three weeks! The reason was that finished inventory was the

responsibility of the distribution function, which was outside the concern ...