Successful Integrated Planning for the Supply Chain, written by Richard Lloyd and published by Kogan Page. ISBN 9780749477684. YYYYY

Integration of activities should be a given in today's fast-moving business climate, but surprisingly it is often over-looked or not given as much close consideration as it deserves. In areas such as the supply chain, it is essential, and this book sets out to guide the reader to success with their integrated planning application, linking and leveraging the dynamics of the organization and its human resources.

Trying to change the supply chain is an activity fraught with danger, even with the best of intents and uniform desire for change. Why? Because there are so many different functions, activities and even stakeholders involved and tweaking one thing can have an impact (often unexpected) somewhere down the line. Even the best-made plans can fall over (as has been seen with a large restaurant chain recently), so any supply chain manager will not only want to have their chain as optimised as possible, but they will surely want to have resilience, restorative space and as much stress-tested validation as possible in to everything, before allowing for the 'daily' disturbances that seemingly are sent to test one's patience and more.

In the right hands, this book may be a little treasure trove, a preemptive insurance policy (for some things you can never have enough insurance) and for others it can be "just" a good source of intelligence, knowledge and thought on possible peripheral or adjacent activities. The book's core objective is to look at change management for supply chains, especially the more complex ones that can feature multiple stakeholders. It cannot guarantee things won't go wrong, but it gets you evaluating the different approaches to change intervention and management and has you consider how integrated planning can be adapted to aid the change process. Built on theory, research and real-world experience, possible areas of uncertainty can be identified for closer inspection, as well as a total-view of the network be made. Brief case studies are provided to add additional colour to the mix.

This book, due to its specialism and price tag, won't be for everybody, but for those involved in a managerial capacity around a supply chain it may be a valuable read, even if (so far) you have no change on the horizon. Should this tricky beast be extant for you, it should be a priority read to build on your existing knowledge and plan of campaign: it will either validate your work or help you refine it further! Best now, before it is too late…?


It is not going to be the only tool in your tool box - far from it - but it is a very good specialist tool for the job that it purports to do. Like any tool, if it is deployed badly by the user, however, the toolmaker cannot be blamed for that. Have faith, and take a closer look, if this sort of thing is within your axis of responsibility.