Logistics Management

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

To introduce a previous book published in 2012, we stated that “in today’s competitive global economy, a firm’s market position and bottom-line financial performance is closely linked to its logistics performance.” Today, as we head into the ever-more globalized world of the 2020s, the critical role that logistics planning and operations plays in ensuring a firm’s financial well-being escalates in importance almost daily. Furthermore, the role of analytics in guiding both logistics planning and operational activities has spiked dramatically since 2012, and this exponential growth shows no sign of slackening for the foreseeable future. Examples of this abound as in recent years many firms, both large and small, have launched ...