There are no required textbooks for this course. There is not one single book that covers (adequately) all of the topics covered in this course. There are three categories of readings: required, additional, and optional. Required readings must be read by students and material from it may show up on problem sets and the final. Additional readings are sources from other books and articles that cover some additional topics. They are good supplemental readings and can help students fully understand some concepts. Optional readings are for students who really want to delve deeper into the topic areas. Typically, these are jumping off points for other courses and research.

Required Readings

Additional Readings

Sheffi, Yossi, and Peter Klaus. "Logistics at Large: Jumping the Barriers of the Logistics Function." Council of Logistics Management Educators' Conference. Chicago, IL. October, 1997, pp. 1-21.

Kahn, Gabriel. "Made to Measure: Invisible Supplier Has Penney's Shirts All Buttoned Up." The Wall Street Journal (September 2003): 1-5.

CLM Logistics Glossary

Note on One Time Discount (PDF)

Home Video VMI Case Study

Note on Total Cost of Lost Sales (PDF)

Baita, Flavio, Carlos Daganzo, and Walter Ukovich. "The Design of a New Freight Distribution System in Venice." Special IFORS Conference on Information Systems in Logistics and Transportation . Gothenburg, Sweden, 1997.

Inventory Modeling and Control

Sadly, there is no single book that covers all of the aspects of transportation that we discussed in class. Here are a couple of ones that do different pieces of it.

[B] Ballou, Ronald. Business Logistics / Supply Chain Management. 5th ed. Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN: 0131076590.
More of an undergrad or light MBA level introduction to logistics systems. But, Chapters 6 and 7 cover the basics of transportation from a planning and execution viewpoint. Includes some discussion of vehicle routing and scheduling - Not a bad general book, but only 120 of the 800 pages touch on transportation.

[D] Daganzo, Carlos. Logistics Systems Analysis. Springer-Verlag, 1999. ISBN: 3-540-65533-6.
This is a unique and interesting way of looking at the planning of logistics systems using Logistics Cost Functions and continuous approximation methods. He pioneered this approach - be warned, though, this is a monograph not a text book. It is dense, uses its own bizarre notation, and does not easily connect to other inventory treatments. But, it is pretty powerful. Only for the really intrigued.

[N] Nahmias, Stephen. Production and Operations Analysis. 4th ed. Irwin McGraw Hill, 2000. ISBN: 0-07-286538-5.
He touches on some transportation issues in his Supply Chain chapter - mainly routing and transportation models. Only for a cursory discussion.

[HL] Hillier, Frederick, and Gerald Lieberman. Introduction to Operations Research. 7th ed. McGraw Hill, 2001. ISBN: 0-07-301779-5.
A solid OR intro book that also includes good discussions and treatments of the underlying algorithms for transportation modeling. He covers network algorithms (shortest path, min/max flow, min spanning tree, etc.) and transportation problems quite well. If you like networks, though, the classic text is [AMO] Ahuja, Magnanti, and Orlin, Network Flows , Prentice-Hall, 1993. ISBN: 0-13-617549-X. It is a phenomenal text book and the class (15.082) is great as well.

On the softer side of things, the following books present more strategic or background views of transportation:
Lambert, and Stock. Chapters 5, and 6. In Strategic Logistics Management. 1993. ISBN: 0-256-08838-1.
Lieb. "A Qualitative Overview of all Modes of Transport - Focus on Exposure Rather than Analysis." Transportation. 4th ed. ISBN: 0-87393-227-7.

Optional Readings

Inventory Modeling and Control

[Z] Zipkin, Paul. Foundations of Inventory Management. Irwin McGraw Hill, 2000. ISBN: 0-256-11379-3.
This is the most comprehensive and theoretical text out there right now. It is well organized and exceptionally rich. However, it can be dense at times and is recommended for those looking for a more mathematical and fundamental perspective on inventory models and management.

[SPP] Silver, Edward A., David Pyke, and Rein Peterson. Inventory Management and Production Planning and Scheduling. 3rd ed. John Wiley and Sons, 1998. ISBN: 0-471-11947-4.
This is a pretty quantitative book that covers all aspects of inventory management and also includes good discussions of forecasting. It is more practitioner oriented, in my opinion, then [Z], but is not as rigorous.

[N] Nahmias, Stephen. Production and Operations Analysis. 4th ed. Irwin McGraw Hill, 2000. 
A great book, but more focused, as the title implies, on OM than SCM. It has good chapters on Forecasting, Inventory Models, and many other topics. Mathematically solid and very insightful. A great addition to a library in any case. Also has good appendices on different techniques and OR approaches that you might find helpful. ISBN: 0-07-286538-5.

[B] Ballou, Ronald. Business Logistics Management. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 1992. ISBN: 0-13-066184-8. (New version due out this fall)
More of an undergrad or light MBA level introduction to logistics systems. It covers the practical sides of inventory management, forecasting, transportation etc. Light on the rigor, but heavy on the practical 'if-you-gotta-get-it-done' kind of approaches. It is a good source of gaining an initial overview of topics but it might leave you hungry for more depth.

[HL] Hillier, Frederick, and Gerald Lieberman. Introduction to Operations Research. 7th ed. McGraw Hill, 2001. ISBN: 0-07-301779-5.
A solid OR intro book that also includes good discussions and treatments of forecasting and inventory modeling. Nothing very practical, but it brings out the fundamental insights and the like. A very worthwhile addition to a library if you have no other OR book.