In today's highly competitive global marketplace, the pressure on organizations to find new ways to create and deliver value to customers grows ever stronger. There is a growing recognition that through logistic efficiency and effective managment of the supply chain both cost reduction and service enhancement can be achieved.

The goal of supply chain management is to link the marketplace, the distribution network, the manufacturing process and the procurement activity in such a way that customers are serviced at higher levels and yet at a lower total cost. In this book, Martin Christopher discusses the role of logistics in achieving these goals. He outines the role of logistics in using service levels to segment markets, exploring approriate measures to assess logistics productivity and service performance. This practical guide provides information on auditing logistic systems and describes how greater responsiveness in the supply chain can be achieved through lead time reduction.