Smeal College Professor Investigates Supply Chain Methods In New Book

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- For more than a decade there has been an increasing interest in the use of supply chain methods to improve performance across the entire business enterprise, and according to "The Practice of Supply Chain Management: Where Theory and Application Converge," a new book co-edited by Terry P. Harrison of Penn State University's Smeal College of Business, increased interest in the field has fueled increased interest and output within the research community.

Harrison, professor of supply chain and information systems in the Smeal College, whose piece on the principles for the strategic design of supply chains leads-off the book, is joined by Hau L. Lee of Stanford University, and John J. Neale of Optiant, Inc. as co-editors. More than 40 academic researchers and corporate practitioners contribute articles on a diverse range of subjects including supply chain performance metrics, the impact of web-based technologies on the field, and the role of inventory.

"The widespread interest in supply chain management has led to innovative ways to re-engineer the supply chain, new software solutions to help companies plan and operate their supply chain, and new business models and services for existing and new players in the supply chain," the co-editors write in the introduction. "Implementation and experimentation naturally lead to new ideas, and the practice-research-practice-research cycle continues."

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishing and intended for business users of supply chain management methods, supply chain management researchers, and students, "The Practice of Supply Chain Management" provides readers with tutorials on key supply chain methods and practices, reviews of the realities of supply chain practices in various industries, descriptions of innovative ideas and new research methodologies and their uses in practice, and a report on possible new insights and research directions.

The book is organized into three sections: core concepts and practices, emerging supply chain practices, and supply chain in action, with each section containing numerous essays from thought leaders in the field.

The Smeal College, which has long been a leader in supply chain education and research, recently merged its Department of Business Logistics and its Department of Management Science and Information Systems to form the nation's first Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems. Smeal is also home to the Center for Supply Chain Research (CSCR), which was established in 1989 and has emerged as one of the nation's foremost institutions dedicated to supply chain management research and education. CSCR draws upon faculty members from several academic areas and from other universities for its expertise.

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