Inbound Logistics Winter Reading Guide 2018

Inbound Logistics Winter Reading Guide 2018

The weather may be cold, but that doesn’t mean your supply chain skills have to freeze up. Check out the books on this list to gain the hottest logistics and supply chain knowledge.

Supply Chain Risk Management: Understanding Emerging Threats to Global Supply Chains

By John Manners-Bell

Quick Takeaway: Supply chain management is risky business. Problems ranging from environmental disasters to terrorist attacks to dishonest stakeholders can act as a wrench that grinds the cogs of your logistics machine to a screeching halt. Having the skills to manage complicated supply chains won’t be enough if you don’t know how to navigate the inevitable risks.

Why It’s a Must Read: Real-world case studies and in-depth analysis of supply chain risk will help you build the skills you need to face unexpected supply chain challenges head on.

Tasty Tidbit: A section dedicated to global supply chain corruption offers advice on handling this common but important issue—one traditionally accepted as the cost of doing business.


Sustainable Operations and Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Second Edition

By Gilvan C. Souza

Quick Takeaway: In the supply chain, "closing the loop" means controlling the development of products and processes through their entire lifecycle—from the extraction of raw materials all the way through end of life. This book offers a chapter-by-chapter guide to carry organizations through to complete supply chain sustainability, beginning with waste reduction and ending with a closed loop.

Why It’s a Must Read: As consumers increasingly demand sustainable operations from the brands they buy, supply chain managers must understand how to implement new sustainable initiatives and create long-term sustainability goals.

Tip We Like: Incorporating a "cradle-to-cradle" philosophy into product development and manufacturing enables manufacturers to avoid toxic materials, ensure recyclability, and design products to be useful through multiple lifecycles.

Intermodal Freight Transport and Logistics

Edited by Jason Monios and Rickard Bergqvist

Quick Takeaway: Many books about the movement of cargo focus on academic theory without offering any context. This is not one of them. The editors sourced chapters from knowledgeable practitioners, making this a valuable reference guide for those interested in exploring the advantages and disadvantages of moving goods across multiple modes.

Why It’s a Must Read: The text digs into a wide array of current technologies across modes. This sort of in-depth knowledge helps practitioners make educated decisions about how they move freight.

Tasty Tidbit: With the development of emission-friendly technologies in newer model trucks, intermodal transport isn’t necessarily the go-to environmentally conscious method to move your freight they way it once was.

Liner Ship and Fleet Planning: Models and Algorithms

By Tingsong Wang, Shuaian Wang, and Qiang Meng

Quick Takeaway: Supply chain professionals involved in moving goods by sea must be familiar with ocean carriers’ most current methods to ensure that their cargo ships in the most cost-effective way possible. This book requires a base quantitative background, but sheds light on current best practices to help ocean freight shippers evaluate their carriers’ methods.

Why It’s a Must Read: When Hanjin went under, many shippers were blindsided. Other carriers struggle with overcapacity as well. It’s crucial for supply chain stakeholders to understand how their carriers operate.

Tasty Tidbit: Most research about maritime shipping fails to include the industry’s uncertainty. Factoring in this uncertainty changes the way we look at problems and develop methodologies to solve them.

Succeeding with Senior Management: Getting the Right Support at the Right Time for Your Project

By G. Michael Campbell

Quick Takeaway: Project managers often struggle to communicate the importance of specific objectives and how they relate to the success of the organization as a whole. Learning to communicate in the big-picture language of the boardroom can help project managers get their point across and receive senior-level support for department-level projects.

Why It’s a Must Read: Any supply chain manager who operates beneath the executive level can benefit from this advice on how to talk to the big dogs.

Tip We Like: You don’t always have to go straight to the top. Including an executive’s deputy in your project committee can open the door to executive support.

Data Analytics for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Edited by Mashur Chowdhury, Amy Apon, and Kakan Dey

Quick Takeaway: Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are the wave of the future. Some day soon, land, air, and water transportation will all be connected in ways that seem like science fiction to the layman. Without the ability to properly analyze and apply the data gathered from these systems, we will fail to actualize the potential of ITS technology.

Why It’s a Must Read: Supply chain professionals must understand this technology and have input into its development to ensure the logistics realm reaps maximum benefits from its implementation.

Tasty Tidbit: Data ranging from large sources such as smart cities to small sources such as mobile devices can be used to develop the next generation of smart transportation solutions.

Total Value Optimization: Transforming Your Global Supply Chain Into a Competitive Weapon

By Steven J. Bowen

Quick Takeaway: Companies in every industry struggle to maintain maximum profitability while trying to keep pace with rapid technological advances and changes in the economy. Using a data-driven approach to logistics, operations, and procurement optimization, the author takes readers through a step-by-step process for analyzing supply chain health and achieving excellence.

Why It’s a Must Read: Every supply chain has room for improvement, and every industry professional struggles to keep pace with new trends, technologies, and best practices.

Tip We Like: Uncertainty is the only certainty in your supply chain’s future. Businesses that prepare for the unexpected will be better equipped to ride out unpleasant surprises.

Mastering Import & Export Management, Third Edition

By Thomas A. Cook

Quick Takeaway: Understanding international commerce is key to success in global supply chain management, but it’s nearly impossible to find all the necessary information in one book. Until now. Foreign market procurement, international risk management, foreign trade zones, and Customs and Border Protection demands are just a few of the topics covered in this sweeping analysis of contemporary global trade.

Why It’s a Must Read: The import/export game is intrinsically linked with supply chain operations, so global supply managers will find this comprehensive book to be a valuable reference tool.

Tip We Like: Incoterms are only guidelines. They don’t cover issues such as payment or disputes. Savvy global traders will develop contracts, invoices, and purchase orders that fill these gaps.

The Buyer’s Toolkit: An Easy-to-Use Approach for Effective Buying

By Jonathan O’Brien

Quick Takeaway: Procurement covers everything from buying office printer paper to sourcing new international suppliers, and the task sometimes falls on people who have limited formal training. The book acts as an introduction to procurement, offering practical advice to help procurement professionals negotiate better deals, manage contracts, and fix problems in the inbound supply chain.

Why It’s a Must Read: Professionals newly tasked with procurement will learn to evaluate suppliers and ensure long-lasting, cost-effective partnerships that have a positive impact on the bottom line.

Tasty Tidbit: A supplier’s sales team averages 10 times more training than the average buyer so unprepared buyers may get steamrolled if they enter negotiations unprepared.

Understanding the Complexity of Emergency Supply Chains

By Matt Shatzkin

Quick Takeaway: Emergency supply chains feature a whole new level of complexity on top of standard supply chain operations. With no developed forecast, distribution models on site that could often be described as haphazard, and circumstances that contradict much standard SCM training, emergency supply chain stakeholders must maintain the ability to improvise.

Why It’s a Must Read: Supply chain operators who have any toes in the water of emergency response need to know in advance how to handle the unique challenges emergency supply chains present.

Tasty Tidbit: Despite the humanitarian nature of disaster relief, much of the complexity results from competition between stakeholders over credit, funding, and donations.

Managing Commodity Price Risk: A Supply Chain Perspective, Second Edition

By George A. Zsidisin, Janet L. Hartley, Barbara Gaudenzi, and Lutz Kaufmann

Quick Takeaway: Every company faces risks from the volatility of commodity prices on the global market, whether that risk is direct, or through second- and third-tier suppliers and beyond. Supply chain professionals must take charge to establish flexible policies and procedures for minimizing this risk, as it directly impacts buyer-supplier relationships, negotiations, and countless other supply chain management functions.

Why It’s a Must Read: Many methods can combat commodity price risk. Having a guide to these multi-faceted, complicated options will lay all the cards on the table for supply chain managers.

Tip We Like: Today’s politically charged global environment means managers must update supply chain models and market intelligence systems to account for political influence on regional and global supply chains.

Supply Chain Management for Dummies

By Daniel Stanton

Quick Takeaway: If you’re reading this, you’re probably not a supply chain dummy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find value within these pages. Rather than explaining supply chain management (SCM) in a silo, this book explains all the fundamentals of SCM and how they relate to the success of larger organizations as a whole.

Why It’s a Must Read: Not just a reference guide, this book gives you valuable advice on explaining the supply chain needs of your business to executives from other departments.

Tasty Tidbit: Supply chain decisions affect seemingly unrelated processes, functions, and business relationships, so having people in key roles who understand these impacts will be crucial to supply chain strategy.

Marketing and Logistics Led Organizations: Creating and Operating Customer Focused Supply Networks

By Robert Mason and Barry Evans

Quick Takeaway: Marketing and logistics go hand in hand. Companies that view logistics as a strictly operational function fail to recognize one of its primary purposes—delivering on the initiatives built by marketing. One cannot survive without the other, and acute leaders will find ways to integrate the functions to provide maximum value to customers.

Why It’s a Must Read: Customer-facing businesses must overcome the disconnect between logistics and marketing if they hope to lead their competitors in customer retention and operational efficiency.

Tasty Tidbit: When logistics and marketing hold hands, the customer experience can be streamlined across the board, making all customer interaction—from sales to delivery and returns—consistent with the brand.

RFID for the Supply Chain and Operations Professional, Second Edition

By Pamela J. Zelbst and Victor E. Sower

Quick Takeaway: When used correctly, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology stimulates growth and efficiency across the supply chain in many ways. RFID doesn’t solve every obstacle, however, and it’s important for non-technical supply chain personnel to understand the technology’s limitations so they can leverage its benefits efficiently.

Why It’s a Must Read: Many RFID texts bury discussions in technical jargon, but this book breaks down those topics to help supply chain professionals understand the technology and its applications.

Tasty Tidbit: There’s a pervasive myth that RFID will render barcodes obsolete, but a chapter dedicated to myth-busting explains that barcodes are often sufficient for many operations.

Global Supply Chain Security and Management: Appraising Programs, Preventing Crimes

By Darren J. Prokop

Quick Takeaway: Supply chain security used to mean preventing damage and cargo theft, but the rise of global terrorism, the resurgence of piracy, and an increase in natural disasters have expanded the term’s purview. Modern supply chain managers must understand these risks and how to combat them if they hope to keep their goods safe and on time.

Why It’s a Must Read: Astute supply chain and risk managers must acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to plan for countless human and natural risks that could impact their operation.

Tip We Like: The U.S. government plays a unique dual role as supply chain partner and police, so maintaining positive compliance and relationships can be doubly useful for shippers.

Forecasting Fundamentals

By Nada R. Sanders

Quick Takeaway: Those tasked with forecasting aren’t psychics. They are responsible for deciding which areas their predictions should focus on to drive company success, and for deciding which tools they need to do so. Readers will learn how to pin down forecasting targets, and how to establish accurate models fueled by technology.

Why It’s a Must Read: Supply chain managers that can predict disruptions, market trends, and new opportunities will drive successful growth and gain the ability to navigate the future without fear of surprises.

Tip We Like: Forecasting relies on analyzing historical data, but what about new products? Using customer surveys and analogous product data, it is possible to forecast new areas.

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