Preface Information Technologies, Methods, and Techniques of Supply Chain Management the Use of Information Technology in Supply Chain Management

Section one consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 entitled " Enterprise Applications for Supply Chain Management " is written by Susan A. Sherer. Coordination of information to effectively operate and manage a supply chain can be a source of competitive advantage today. In order to gather, utilize, and effectively share information, companies continue to invest in information technology, acquiring and integrating many different types of enterprise applications. The foundation of most enterprise information infrastructures today is the enterprise resource planning system (ERP) which has greatly reduced the number of applications required to track and share information across cross functional business processes. However, many companies supplement basic ERP systems with legacy, custom, and best of breed applications to optimize supply chain execution and management. These systems not only help run and manage the business, but support collaboration among supply chain partners. In addition to systems that primarily support traditional supply chain processes such as source, plan, make, deliver, and return, businesses must integrate information from systems that manage supporting processes such as design and engineering and customer focused applications. Applications such as business intelligence, and productivity, communication, and collaboration tools, must also be part of an enterprise information infrastructure for supply chain management. Without integrating these applications, effective analysis and information sharing cannot be achieved. Most previous research has focused on subsets of a complete information systems infrastructure, for example, supply chain planning or customer relationship management or logistics or business intelligence systems. The main contribution of this chapter is that it brings together in a single framework all the various applications that are required to build an enterprise information infrastructure for supply chain management. The chapter organizes and describes all the different applications that make up an information infrastructure for supply chain management including ERP; e-procurement, supplier relationship management, and B2B marketplaces; advanced planning and optimization, and collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment; computer aided manufacturing; content providers of freight ratings, import/export compliance, and environmental health and safety; manufacturing integration and intelligence; vendor managed inventory systems; warehouse and transportation management systems, and transportation exchanges; reverse logistics tracking and management; computer aided design and collaborative product development and product lifecycle management; customer relationship manage