Daniel Stanton

Filled with wise advice and practical to-do tips, riskmethods Supply Chain Risk Management for Dummies is a new addition to the popular Dummies series! This compact book presents the basics of supply chain risk management, makes the business case for using automation to identify, monitor, assess and mitigate risk, and details how SCRM systems create more resilient supply networks.

Today, we’re starting to hold supply chain professionals accountable for knowing the full provenance of the products that our companies buy and sell. In other words, we need to know what the products are, where they’ve been, and what’s happened to them along the way—because companies that don’t manage supply chain provenance are easy targets for criminals who commit product fraud.

Supply Chain Management For Dummies helps you connect the dots between things like purchasing, logistics, and operations to see how the big picture is affected by seemingly isolated inefficiencies. Your business is a system, made of many moving parts that must synchronize to most efficiently meet the needs of your customers—and your shareholders. Interruptions in one area ripple throughout the entire operation, disrupting the careful coordination that makes businesses successful; that's where… Show more

Supply Chain Management For Dummies helps you connect the dots between things like purchasing, logistics, and operations to see how the big picture is affected by seemingly isolated inefficiencies. Your business is a system, made of many moving parts that must synchronize to most efficiently meet the needs of your customers—and your shareholders. Interruptions in one area ripple throughout the entire operation, disrupting the careful coordination that makes businesses successful; that's where supply chain management (SCM) comes in. Show less

The fact is, excellent project leadership may be the single best investment of time and money an organization can make. It reduces risk, increases return on investment and becomes the key to linking strategy with execution.

The brave new world of the customer-centric supply chain will require supply chain managers to embrace the change, drive it in their organizations and learn to manage with their customers in mind rather than focusing strictly on costs.

By viewing talent as a supply chain in itself, the industry can more easily find and retain workers, advance careers and lower the costs of education.

Supply chain management is not the only function that is grappling with the problems of matching supply and demand in a highly uncertain business environment. HR faces similar challenges. But with HR, the mandate is to deliver people - not products - to the right place, at the right time, at the right quality, and in the right quantity.

SupplyChainBrain interview focused on the challenge of finding and developing global supply chain talent. (Free registration required to view video)

The drawbacks of assuring supply by maintaining inventory at the distribution center level are discussed. Supply chain alternatives are presented including lateral transfers, forward warehouses, alternative modes of transportation, and multiple suppliers. An analytical approach is presented which provides a total relevant supply chain cost at the distribution center level.