Chapter 26: Manufacturing Logistics

It is often claimed that the essential principles of logistics and supply chain management can be applied to many different business processes across a wide range of industries, including service industries. However, most mainstream textbooks widely adopted for logistics and supply chain management teaching have focused primarily on manufactured goods. Coyle et al. (1996) and Bowersox and Closs (1996) are the classic examples of their genre. Through successive editions, these texts have evolved from their roots essentially in physical distribution management towards a more comprehensive and integrated coverage of supply chain activities. Recent editions contain far more material on inbound logistics, once the province solely of purchasing and supply texts. They also incorporate modern thinking on supply chain relationships (e.g., on partnership sourcing), and they set out the basic just-in-time business philosophy. What they fail to do is to provide thorough and rigorous treatment of the principles and methodology of modern manufacturing in the context of the supply chain.