The Profitable Supply Chain: A Practitioner's Guide provides a first-principles approach to understanding the drivers of today’s successful supply chains, covering everything from inventory and demand management to network planning to technology-driven improvements in efficient supply chain management. Apart from introducing the latest concepts and methods, supply chain expert and consultant Ramnath Ganesan provides numerous real-world examples and cases to clarify how his process-oriented approach can be applied to specific situations, together with spreadsheet functions when appropriate. Practitioners will be especially interested, for example, in the sections on assessing external factors for demand, modifying network routings in response to rising fuel prices, designing a framework for identifying issues and tracking actions, and instituting financial measures to track performance. The book addresses situations found in such industries as consumer electronics, healthcare, telecommunications, consumer goods, industrial equipment, building materials, and many others. No matter the industry, all firms trading products face operational challenges in producing and/or moving goods in a geographically dispersed global network while fulfilling customer demand in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Such demands can only be supported by a rigorous approach that aligns supply with demand, an approach this book outlines clearly and simply. The Profitable Supply Chain will prove a valuable reference for production schedulers, plant managers, material managers, demand planners, and supply chain executives. Among other things, it covers the following topics in great depth: How to design and implement an efficient, scalable supply chain management process from the ground up—or improve the one you have. How to maintain adequate inventory levels while reducing the cost of supplying products. How to implement specific metrics that help improve supply chain performance and forecast accuracy. How to gain competitive advantages through the latest advances in IT architecture and software. This book will also be of immense value to information technology professionals. That includes enterprise application developers charged with designing and implementing a supply chain IT architecture, as well as those administering and maintaining an enterprise resource planning or advance planning system. There are few areas in business more ripe for cost reductions than in the supply chain. The Profitable Supply Chain is therefore your go-to resource for making supply chain operations leaner, more efficient, and ultimately far more profitable than they are now.