Book Review of Handbook of Global Logistics Transportation in International Supply Chains

This volume is a collection of commissioned contributions, edited by James H Bookbinder, to follow up on a special issue of the journal Transportation Research E, edited by the same editor, which focused on Global Logistics. One of the goals of this volume is to have perspectives of logistics researchers in different geographic areas. Part I consists of four chapters. The first chapter by Chen and Lee focuses on logistics in China in terms of practice, emphasizing geographical issues, modes of transportation, as well as economic challenges and prospectives for the future. The authors provide a broad literature review of different aspects of logistics in China, and present two case studies of an OEM company and a 3PL company. Chapter 2 by Sundarraj and Kumari investigates the potential of Electronic Procurement Systems (EPS) in India, given the major role that IT plays there. The authors briefly compare supply chains in India with those in North America, noting how some Indian firms have overcome fragmented supply chains by including Indian customs. The authors describe the benefits of EPS and conduct a survey of Indian managers about the importance of EPS features, with respondents recognizing the importance, although adoption is low. They then follow up with case studies on three Indian companies. Sohal and Rahman in Chapter 3 give a wide and deep discussion on the use of third party logistics (3PL) services in the Asia-Pacific region, primarily among Australia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. The authors use a literature-based approach and overview of the growth in outsourcing of logistics, the motivation behind the growth, and discuss the types of services offered in the supply chain by 3PL providers. In addition, Sohal and Rahman detail the competencies needed by logistics managers with a specific emphasis on China and Australia. This chapter is a nice complement to the first two chapters. Chapter 4 by Banomyong describes in depth the need for efficient logistics services in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) in Southeast Asia, consisting of Cambodia, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. The emphasis is on economic corridors with the need for assessing the logistics performance of these corridors. An overview is given of the status of GMS logistics developments and the transport mode networks. A corridor logistics assessment model is presented with time and cost components. The author proposes an integrated attack to handle the challenges posed by rules and regulatory aspects associated …