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Interactive‐graphic systems and operations research methodologies are increasingly being combined to produce efficient, versatile and powerful tools that enhance the decision‐making process. The possible contribution of such tools to the planning of distribution systems for industrial firms and freight carrier service networks and operations is examined and compared.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Preface The functions of business divide into several areas and the general focus of this book is on one of the most important although least understood of these—DISTRIBUTION. The particular focus is on reviewing current practice in distribution costing and on attempting to push the frontiers back a little by suggesting some new approaches to overcome previously defined shortcomings.

Key components of the logistics mix are described in an effort to create an understanding of the total logistics concept. Chapters include an introduction to logistics; the strategic role of logistics, customer service levels, channel relationships, facilities location, transport, inventory management, materials handling, interface with production, purchasing and materials management, estimating demand, order processing, systems performance, leadership and team building, business resource management.

Taiwan is one of the newly industrialised economies. Its foreign currency reserves are among the largest in the world. Still, few efforts have been expended to examine its distribution system. This article intends to examine issues concerning Taiwan’s distribution system and its impact on foreign‐produced consumer products. Based on examining the distribution channels for six New Zealand‐produced products, a number of conclusions are drawn. The findings of this study point out that firms’ choice of market entry mode might be affected by the host market’s distribution system. The most common channel structure used by foreign producers marketing in Taiwan is a multiple channel system. In addition, the study concurs with findings on the Japanese distribution system, that a common problem facing firms operating in these markets is the large number of small sized retailing outlets. Due to the similarities of the two systems, foreign firms are recommended to use the experience of those firms which have successfully penetrated the Japanese market.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

This paper is concerned with the application of systems analysis to problems of physical distribution. The principles of systems analysis and the concepts of the systems approach are outlined. Physical distribution is described as a set of major subsystems. The objective of this analysis is to provide a generalised framework for the solution of physical distribution problems. It may be noted that in the United Kingdom, systems analysis has come to be used in a narrower sense and to be concerned primarily with the design and specification of computer systems. In this paper, it is used in the wider sense, and for an appreciation the reader's attention is drawn to collections of papers by Emery, Opfner and Beishon and Peters. The use of a problem solving methodology is not unique to systems analysis except in the sense that systems analysis defines a particular process of problem solution. Similar processes are used in industrial engineering, method study, operational research, value analysis and management accounting. Other analyses of physical distribution systems are equally valid. That presented in this paper identifies a series of distribution units in the chain of distribution. It seeks to define the subsystems within each unit. The approach relies heavily on a series of diagrams which is intended to give a visual image of the relationships between elements in the chain.

This chapter offers the first full translation from Russian to English of the Balance of the National Economy of the USSR, 1924–26’s first chapter. Involving 12 authors and composed of 21 chapters, the Balance is a collective work published in June 1926 in Moscow by the Soviet Central Statistical Administration under the scientific supervision of its former director, Pavel Illich Popov (1872–1950). In this first chapter, titled ‘Studying the Balance of the National Economy: An Introduction’, Popov set the theoretical foundations of what might be considered as the first modern national accounting system and paved the way to multisector macroeconometric modelling.

The study here examines how business actors adapt to changes in networks by analyzing their perceptions or their network pictures. The study is exploratory or iterative in the sense that revisions occur to the research question, method, theory, and context as an integral part of the research process.

Changes within networks receive less research attention, although considerable research exists on explaining business network structures in different research traditions. This study analyzes changes in networks in terms of the industrial network approach. This approach sees networks as connected relationships between actors, where interdependent companies interact based on their sensemaking of their relevant network environment. The study develops a concept of network change as well as an operationalization for comparing perceptions of change, where the study introduces a template model of dottograms to systematically analyze differences in perceptions. The study then applies the model to analyze findings from a case study of Norwegian/Japanese seafood distribution, and the chapter provides a rich description of a complex system facing considerable pressure to change. In-depth personal interviews and cognitive mapping techniques are the main research tools applied, in addition to tracer studies and personal observation.

The dottogram method represents a valuable contribution to case study research as it enables systematic within-case and across-case analyses. A further theoretical contribution of the study is the suggestion that network change is about actors seeking to change their network position to gain access to resources. Thereby, the study also implies a close relationship between the concepts network position and the network change that has not been discussed within the network approach in great detail.

Another major contribution of the study is the analysis of the role that network pictures play in actors' efforts to change their network position. The study develops seven propositions in an attempt to describe the role of network pictures in network change. So far, the relevant literature discusses network pictures mainly as a theoretical concept. Finally, the chapter concludes with important implications for management practice.

The internet of things and just-in-time are the embryonic model of innovation for the state-of-the-art design of the service system. This paper aims to develop a fault-tolerant machining system with active and standby redundancy. The availability of the fault-tolerant redundant repairable system is a key concern in the successful deployment of the service system.

In this paper, the authors cogitate a fault-tolerant redundant repairable system of finite working units along with warm standby unit provisioning. Working unit and standby unit are susceptible to random failures, which interrupt the quality-of-service. The system is also prone to common cause failure, which tends its catastrophe. The instantaneous repair of failed unit guarantees the increase in the availability of the unit/system. The time-to-repair by the single service facility for the failed unit follows the arbitrary distribution. For increasing the practicability of the studied model, the authors have also incorporated real-time machining practices such as imperfect coverage of the failure of units, switching failure of standby unit, common cause failure, reboot delay, switch over delay, etc.

For deriving the explicit expression for steady-state probabilities of the system, the authors use a supplementary variable technique for which the only required input is the Laplace–Stieltjes transform (LST) of the repair time distribution.

For complex and multi-parameters distribution of repair time, derivation of performance measures is not possible. The authors prefer numerical simulation because of its importance in the application for real-time uses.

The stepwise recursive procedure, illustrative examples, and numerical results have been presented for the diverse category of repair time distribution: exponential (M), n-stage Erlang (Ern), deterministic (D), uniform (U(a,b)), n-stage generalized Erlang (GE_[n]) and hyperexponential (HE_[n]).

Concluding remarks and future scopes have also been included. The studied fault-tolerant redundant repairable system is suitable for reliability analysis of a computer system, communication system, manufacturing system, software reliability, service system, etc.

As per the survey in literature, no previous published paper is presented with so wide range of repair time distribution in the machine repair problem. This paper is valuable for system design for reliability analysis of the fault-tolerant redundant repairable.