Book Review: Supply Chain Management for Dummies

I’ve been meaning to read Supply Chain Management for Dummies for a long time and wasn’t sure what to expect.

I was most surprised by the breadth of the book. It covers almost every imaginable topic a supply chain professional deals with.

Because of the breadth and the book’s objective to be accessible to a broad audience, it doesn’t (and, rightly shouldn’t) go deep.

Throughout the book, on topics that I know, I said to myself, “he could have expanded this paragraph to a long chapter or whole book.” I could have said this on every page. That would have made a ten-thousand-page book. Instead, the book does a great job of introducing the topic, covering the basics, and giving readers enough to explore more.

Naturally, the book is perfect for new hires, data scientists or consultants on a supply chain project, investors, or people switching companies who may only have a view of one supply chain. This book will quickly introduce you to the lay of the land and the terms that people will use.

It is a book I wish had been around when I started. It would have saved me a lot of time.

The book is also worthwhile to people with supply chain experience. It’s a solid reference and covers topics you haven’t encountered or need a reminder on.

Here are the highlights for me:

I enjoyed the chapter on analyzing supply chains from different perspectives. I usually talk about supply chains from the perspective of flows. This chapter reminded others may view it by functions, communities, processes, or systems.

I’m not very good at project management and have ignored the field more than is advisable. There is a good chapter on common approaches to project management and even a process created by the author. I learned from this.

There was a good section on what you can do to improve to create a better supply chain (like control towers, demand shaping, postponement, inventory optimization, finance, and others). Seeing a list like this gives you ideas for things you may have forgotten or is a starting point for new ideas. The section on metrics gave a concrete definition of agility that I hadn’t seen before and will start using.

Even though I’m knee-deep in supply chain software and education, the list of vendors by category showed me a few new names, and I picked up some new educational ideas.

Overall, this is a solid book to have on your bookshelf.