Julien Bramel – författare

Fierce competition in today''s global market provides a powerful motivation for developing ever more sophisticated logistics systems. This book, written for the logistics manager and researcher, presents a survey of the modern theory and application of logistics. The goal of the book is to present the state of the art in the science of logistics management. As a result, the authors have written a timely and authoritative survey of this field that many practitioners and researchers will find makes an invaluable companion to their work.

Fierce competition in today's global market provides a powerful motivation for developing ever more sophisticated logistics systems. This book, written for the logistics manager and researcher, presents a survey of the modern theory and application of logistics. The goal of the book is to present the state of the art in the science of logistics management.This third edition includes new chapters on the subjects of game theory, the power of process flexibility, supply chain competition and collaboration. Among the other materials new to the edition are sections on discrete convex analysis and its applications to stochastic inventory models, as well as extended discussions of integrated inventory and pricing models. The material presents a timely and authoritative survey of the field that will make an invaluable companion to the work of many researchers and practitioners.Review of earlier edition:"The present book focuses on the application of operational researchand mathematical modelling techniques to logistics and supply chain management (SCM) problems. The authors performed a substantial revision of the 1st edition and included a number of new subjects. The book is carefully written and is an important reference for readers with a solid background in probability and optimisation theory. The present book should be seen as a valuable guide describing techniques that can be applied or adapted to real-life situations." (OR News, Issue 25, 2005).

This book grew out a number of distribution and logistics graduate courses we have taught over the last ten years. In the first few years, the emphasis was on very basic models such as the traveling salesman problem, and on the seminal papers of Haimovich and Rinnooy Kan (1985), which analyzed a simple vehicle routing problem, and Roundy (1985), which introduced power-of-two policies and proved that they are effective for the one warehouse multi-retailer distribution system. At that time, few results existed for more complex, realistic distribution problems, stochastic inventory problems or the integration of these issues. In the last few years however, there has been renewed interest in the area of logistics among both industry and academia. A number of forces have contributed to this shift. First, industry has realized the magnitude of savings that can be achieved by better planning and management of complex logistics systems. In­ deed, a striking example is Wal-Mart''s success story which is partly attributed to implementing a new logistics strategy, called cross-docking. Second, advances in information and communication technologies together with sophisticated decision support systems now make it possible to design, implement and control logistics strategies that reduce system-wide costs and improve service level. These decision support systems, with their increasingly user-friendly interfaces, are fundamentally changing the management of logistics systems.