Waveland Press - Supply Chain Science by Wallace J. Hopp

Managers face an infinite range of situations and problems that involve bringing materials and information together to produce and deliver goods and services to customers. In Hopp’s solid, practical introduction to manufacturing and supply chain dynamics, managers learn how to use the scientific approach—to understand “why” systems behave the way they do—as an effective way to deal with almost any scenario they may face.

Written in a reader-friendly style, the text includes useful examples from manufacturers as well as service providers, presents the key concepts that underlie the behavior of operations systems in a largely non-mathematical way, contains illustrations and analogies to everyday life, links theory to practice, and reinforces the learning process with end-of-chapter “Questions for Thought.”

“Glad to see this picked up. Certainly a steal [at the new price] and makes a nice theoretical summary of many concepts throughout our supply chain program.” — Geoff Willis, University of Central Oklahoma

0. Strategic Foundations
Starting with Strategy / Setting Our Goals / Defining Our Terms / Structuring Our Study

Part I: STATION SCIENCE

1. Capacity
Introduction / Measuring Capacity / Limits on Capacity / Impact of Utilization

2. Variability
Introduction / Little's Law / Measuring Variability / Influence of Variability

3. Batching
Introduction / Simultaneous Batching / Sequential Batching / Multiproduct Batching

Part II: LINE SCIENCE

4. Flows
Introduction / Characterizing Flows / Best-Case Performance / Worst-Case Performance / Practical Worst-Case Performance / Internal Benchmarking / Variability Propagation / Improving Performance of Process Flows

5. Buffering
Introduction / Buffering Fundamentals / The Role of Strategy / Buffer Flexibility / Buffer Location / The Science of Lean Production

6. Push/Pull
Introduction / What Is Pull? / Examples of Pull Systems / The Magic of Pull / Comparisons of Push and Pull / Pull Implementation

Part III: NETWORK SCIENCE

7. Inventory
Introduction / Classification / Cycle Stock / Safety Stock / Periodic Review Systems / Continuous Review Systems / Multi-Item Systems

8. Risk
Introduction / Pooling / Contingency Planning / Crisis Management

9. Coordination
Introduction / Hierarchical Inventory Management / The Inventory/Order Interface / The Bullwhip Effect / Supply Chain Contracts / Information Management / Restructuring Supply Chains

Appendix A: Summary of Notation
Appendix B: Supply Chain Science Principles