| Question | Answer |
| Logistics | Part of the supply chain process that plans implements and controls the efficient effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption to meet cust. requrirements |
| Less Than Truckload (LTL) Shipment | a smaller shipment, often combined with other loads to reduce costs and improve truck efficiencies |
| Multimodal solutions | transportation solutions that seek to exploat the strengths of multiple transportation modes through physical information, and monetary flows that are as seamless as possible |
| Roadrailers | specialized rail cars the size of standard truck trailers that can be quickly swithced from tail to ground transport by changing the wheels. |
| Warehousing | any operation that stores, repackages, stages, sorts, or centralizes goods or materials. Organizations use warehousing to reduce transportation costs, improve operational felxibility, shorten customer lead times, and lower inventory costs |
| Consolidation Warehousing | a form of warehousing that pulls together shipments from a number of sources in the same geographical area and combines them into larger, and hence more economical- shipping loads |
| Cross-docking | a form of warehousing in which large incoming shipments are recieved and then broken down into smaller outgoing shipments to demand points in a geographical area. |
| Break-bulk warehousing | a specialized form of crossdocking in which the incoming shipments are from a single source or manufacterer |
| Hubandspoke Systems | a form of warehousing in which strategically placed hubs are used as sorting or transfer facilities. Typically located at convenient, high-traffic locations. The spokes refer to the routes serving the destinations associated with the hubs |
| Pup Trailer | a type of truck trailer that is half the size of a regular truck trailer. |
| Postponement warehousing | a form of warehousing that combines classic warehouse operations with light manufacturing and packaging duties to allow firms to put off final assembly or packaging of goods until the last possible moment |
| Assortment Warehousing | a form of warehousing in which a wide array of goods is held close to the source of demand in order to assure short customer lead times |
| Spot stock warehousing | a form of warehousing that attempts to position seasonal goods close to the marketplace. at the end of each season, the goods are either liquidated or moved back to a more centralized location. |
| Material Handling Systems | the equipment and procedures needed to move goods within a facility between a facility, and a transportation mode, and between different transportation modes |
| Packaging | from a logsitics perspective, the way goods and materials are packed in order to facilitate physical, informational, and monetary flows through the supply chain |
| Logisitics Strategy | a functional strategy that ensures that an organizations logistics choices - transportation, warehousing, information systems and eve form of ownership - are consistent with its overall business strategy |
| common carriers | also known as public carriers, transportation service providers who handle shipments on a case-by-case basis, without the need for long-term agreements or contracts |
| Contract Carriers | transportation service providers who handle shipments for other firms based on long-term agreements or contracts. |
| Third-Party Logisitcs providers | service firms that handle all of the logistics requirements for other companies |
| Perfect Order | a term used to refer to the timely, error-free provision of a product or service in good condition |
| Limited Cost | the cost of a product plus all costs driven by logistics activities such as transportation, warehousing, handling, customs fees, and the like |
| Freight Forwarder | an agent who serves as an intermediary between the organization shipping the product and the actual carrier typicall on international shipments |
| Customs Broker | an agent who handles customs requirements on behalf of another firm. In the US, customs brokers must be licened by the Customs Service. |
| Weighted Center of Gravity Method | a logisitcs decision modeling technique that attempts to identify the "best" location for a single warehous store or plant given multiple demand points that differ in location and importance. |
| Organizaiton Models | a class of mathemeatical models used when the user seeks to optimize some objective function subject to some constraints |
| Objective Function | a quantitative function that an optimization model seeks to optimize |
| Constraints | Within the context of Optimization modeling, quantifiable conditions that place limitation on the set of possible solutions. The solution to an optimization model is acceptable only if it does not break any of the constraints. |
| Assignment Problem | A specialized form of an optimization model that attempts to assign limited capacity to various demand points in a way that minimizes costs. |
| Decision Variables | Within the context of optimization modeling, those variables that will be manipulated to find the best solution |
| Sourcing Decisions | High-level, often strategic decisions regarding which products or services will be provided internally and which will be provided by external supply chain partners. Also called Make-or-buy decisions |
| Purchasing | the activities associated with identifying needs, located and selecting suppliers, negotiateing terms, and following up to ensure supplier performance. |
| COGS (cost of goods sold) | the cost of goods purchased from outside suppliers |
| Merchandise Inventory | a balance sheet item that shows the amount a company paid for the inventory it has on hand at a particular point in time |
| Profit Margin | the ratio of earings to sales for a given time period |
| Return on Assets (ROA) | a measure of financial performance, generally defined as earings/total assets. Higher ROA values are preferred as they indicate that the firm is able to generate higher earnings from the same asset base |
| Profit Leverage Effect | a dollar in cost savings increases pretax profits by one dollar, while a dollar increase in sales increases pretax profits only by the dollar mulitplied by the pretex profit margin |
| Insourcing | the use of resources winithin the firm to provide products or services |
| Outsourcing | the use of supply chain partners to provide products or services |
| Core Competencies | organizational strengths or abilities developed over a long period that customers find valuable and competitors find difiicult or even impossible to copy. |
| total cost analysis | a process by which a firm seeks to identify and quantify all of the major costs associated with various sourcing options |
| Direct Costs | costs that are tied directly to the level of operations or supply chain activities such as the production of a good or service, or transportation |
| Indirect Vosts | costs that are not tied directly to the level of operations or supply chain activity. |
| Single Sourcing | a sourcing strategy in which the buying firm depends on a single company for all or nearly all of a particular item or service |
| Multiple sourcing | a sourcing strategy in which the buying firm shares its business across multiple suppliers |
| Cross sourcing | a sourcing strategy in which the company uses a single-supplier for a certain part or service in one part of the business and another supplier whi the same capabilities for a similiar part in another area of the business. |
| Dual Sourcing | a sourcing strategy in which two suppliers are used for the same purchased product or service. |
| Purchase requisition | an internal document completed by a used that informs purchasing of a specific need |
| Reorder point system | a method used to initiate the purchase of routine items |
| Description | the communication of a user's needs to potential suppliers in the most efficient and accurate way possible |
| Description by market grade/industry standard | a description method, used when the requirements are well understood and there is common agreement betweeen supply chain partners about what certain terms mean |
| Description by Brand | a description method, used when a product or service is proprietary or when there is a perceived advantage to using a particular supplier's products or services |
| Description by specification | a description method, used when an organization needs to provide very detailed descriptions of the characteristics of an item or service |
| Descritption by Performance Characteristics | a description method, focuses attention on the outcomes the customer wants, not on the precises configuration of the product or service |
| Planning and control systems | systems that release, schedule, and control the flow of work in an organization |
| Preferred Supplier | a supplier that had demonstrated its performance capabilities through pervious purchase contracts, and therefore receives preference during the supplier selection process |
| Request for Quotation (RFQ) | a formal request for suppliers to prepare bids based on the terms and coniditons set by the buyer |
| Purchase Order (PO) | a document that authorizes a supplier to deliver a product or service and that often includes key terms and conditions, such as price, delivery, and quality requirements |
| Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) | an information technology that allows supply chain partners to transfer data electronlically between their information systems |
| Statement of Work | Terms and coniditons for a purchased service that indicate, among other things, what services will be performed and how the service provider will be evaluated. |
| Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) | the automatic transfer of payment from the buyer's bank account to the supplier's bank account |
| Multicriteria Decision Models | Models that allow decision makers to evaluate various alternatives across multiple decision criteria |
| Purchase consolidation | the pooling of purchasing requirements by multiple areas in a company or even across companies |
| B2B Exchanges | Online trading communities that put potential buyers and suppliers in touch with one another and automate the flow of information between the trading parties, can be public or private |
| Information System | a set of interlated components that collect or retrieve process store and distribute information to support decision making coordination and control in an organization |
| Customer Relationship Management | a term that broadly refers to planning and control activities and information systems that link a firm with its downstream customers |
| Supplier Relationship Management | a term that broadly refers to planning and control activities and information systems that link a firm with its upstream suppliers |
| Internal supply chain management | a term referring to the information flows between higher and lower levels of planning and control systems within an organization. |
| Information Flow Profile | a tool that decision makers used to graph the relative performance of an information flow along a set of performance dimensions. |
| Environmental Scanning | the acquisiiont and use of information about events, trends, and relationships in an organization's internal and external environments. |
| Corporate social responsibility | Economic, environmental, and social responsibilty in a company |
| Compatibility | the need to align network-design decisions with the company's overall strategy |
| Configuration | the decision of where to locate value-added activities. |
| Coordination | the challenge of integrating geographically dispersed activities. |