Supply Chain Management Best Practices, 3rd Edition

Preface

When I wrote the first edition of this book, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were still fresh in people's minds and the world was still grappling with new security procedures that changed travel, security, and global supply chains in ways that nobody could have imagined pre-9/11. The US Department of Homeland Security was as frequently mentioned in supply chain circles as the IRS is mentioned at accounting firms. It was pretty much accepted as gospel that the world as we knew it had been changed forever. Welcome, the saying went, to the New Normal, characterized by stringent security measures that would slow global trade to a near halt as cargo and passengers alike would need to be thoroughly screened at every land, sea, and airport.

I wrote the second edition a few years later when the United States, and pretty much the rest of the world, was plunged in what came to be known as the Great Recession. The housing market had tanked, the stock market had crashed, unemployment had spiked, and the new “New Normal,” we were told, would be an economy of very modest growth. Supply chain professionals were being advised to go lean—not just following the principles of continuous improvement, but preparing for an economy that might never fully bounce back.

That brings us to this third edition, which was written while the entire world was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. At this writing, while we seem to have gotten past the worst of the virus, and while the rapid ...