Supply Chain Management Best Practices, 3rd Edition

Acknowledgments

The genesis for writing this book came largely from a need to clean up my office. I've been writing about supply chain management for a long time, dating back to the days when nobody even used the words “supply chain,” and being a pack rat, I have several filing cabinets' and countless jumpdrives' worth of notes, interview transcripts, research studies, surveys, press kits, and article clippings, as well as several shelves stuffed with reference books. One day, staring at my daunting collection of supply chain stuff, the thought occurred to me: “Surely, there's got to be a book somewhere in all of this.” And indeed there was—in fact, with this current edition there have been three, and my collection of book material shows no sign of shrinking.

I mention this to dispel the myth that every book emerges fully formed from the divinely inspired mind of the author. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book evolved over time from the writing and editing I've done for the past three decades, especially the two decades I've spent in editorial management of various supply chain publications—including Supply Chain Technology News, Logistics Today, Material Handling & Logistics, and IndustryWeek—for Penton Media/Informa/Endeavor Business Media. Throughout my tenure with the company (the corporate owner of the magazines changed over the years, but I stayed put), I've also edited several other publications not necessarily supply chain–focused but whose readers were ...