This utterly unique how-to supply chain management work is written as mystery to help engage readers. It fills the need for an accessible work on supply chain management skills that helps strengthen, improve, and adapt the management of industries to meet the swiftly changing needs of a global market.
The Missing Links follows a small furniture company whose owner has died under suspicious circumstances, leaving his musician daughter in charge. The business newcomer encounters a multitude of problems–high work-in-progress inventory, unsafe working conditions, conflicts between two in-house factions, longstanding customers beginning to withdraw their business, and increased competition. Can the factory ever be profitable again?
The work follows the journey of the company to utilize industry standards, including total quality, lean, total productive maintenance, flow management, as well as the newest demand driven methodologies that are changing modern supply chain management. "Clues" dispersed throughout the manuscript point readers in the direction of an affiliated website where they will find 33 appendices of charts, forms, and additional improvement information that can be customized, regardless of size of the company, or industry.
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