Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning: Concepts, Models, Software, and Case Studies

This is a Fifth Edition of the book, and since I own the Second Edition, it was a pleasure to review changes and additions to the new edition. The authors have updated information about software vendors, and (most important for me), added updates in some places on how particular solution that looked state-of-the-art in 2002, looks now in 2016. For example, see section titled 'Results and Lessons Learned' on page 422 in the case of scheduling of synthetic granulate in SAP APO PP/DS.Overall, this is a good book that gives a fair overview of supply chain planning (SCP) practices and relevant software packages. Having said that, this book should not be the only reference for an SCP practitioner as the field changes constantly. For example, in the chapter on software selection, there is no mentioning of software companies that have various innovative SCP solutions such as PlanetTogether or ToolsGroup. Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimization for supply planning based on service levels is not mentioned (Kinaxis, Logility, INFORM, SAP IBP Inventory, etc.). Full disclosure: author works for Kinaxis. In the sections on software systems architecture, there is no mentioning of control tower-type systems. For SAP APO, the book talks about using PPM (Production Process Model) for modeling but not PDS (Production Data Structure) objects, which was a major change for SAP APO since 2002. Additionally, the book would benefit from some minor editing, such as noting that SAP SNC (Supply Network Collaboration) on page 358 is the same software as SAP ICH (Inventory Collaboration Hub) on page 275, just renamed some time before the Fifth Edition.Nevertheless, I have enjoyed reading the Fifth Edition, and consider it a valuable addition to my personal library.