Supply Chain Planning

Foreword

My first exposure to the discipline of supply chain management was in the fall of 1969 when, as an undergraduate business major at the University of Notre Dame, I took an elective course in Physical Distribution Management. It was certainly a more innocent time for logisticians, for the management objective in those days typically consisted of balancing a limited set of finished goods distribution costs against selected customer service goals, and almost always for domestic firms.

It seems axiomatic, almost to the point of trite, for supply chain management professionals to cite the daunting complexity of the challenges they routinely confront. Self-important puffery? Maybe 40 years ago but not today. Consider the overwhelming evidence: ...