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Materials management de facto has existed for many years in terms of procedures for buying and processing material to meet orders for finished products. However, the term itself first came into vogue in the mid 1960s and various commentators have pointed to different factors which have led to its evolution and growth over the past 15 or more years. Whilst any analysis of the relative importance of the various factors involved is beyond the scope of this survey, it is fair to say that a combination of pressures in the 1960s and 1970s led to a change in direction of business thinking and a search for profit contributions through the adoption of an integrated materials management approach in previously neglected areas. There is no single view about what materials management really is and the materials management concept has been given many interpretations. Academics and organisations alike interpret materials management in the light of their own experiences and perceptions.

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.

For the purpose of reducing the incidence of hazardous materials transport accident, eliminating the potential threats and ensuring their safety, aiming at the shortcomings in the process of current hazardous materials transportation management, this paper aims to construct the framework of hazardous materials transportation safety management system under the vehicle-infrastructure connected environment.

The system takes the intelligent connected vehicle as the main supporter, integrating GIS, GPS, eye location, GSM, networks and database technology.

By analyzing the transportation characteristics of hazardous materials, this system consists of five subsystems, which are vehicle and driver management subsystem, dangerous sources and hazardous materials management subsystem, route analysis and optimization subsystem, early warning and emergency rescue management subsystem, and basic information query subsystem.

Hazardous materials transportation safety management system includes omnibearing real-time monitoring, timely updating of system database, real-time generation and optimization of emergency rescue route. The system can reduce the transportation cost and improve the ability of accident prevention and emergency rescue of hazardous materials.

The philosophical arguments for adopting Logistics Management as an organisational concept are formidable. They embrace thinking which envisages an organisation as a whole rather than as a series of elements. They promote the idea of effective collaboration between the various elements of a system towards the achievement of commonly agreed objectives. They indicate the problems caused by attempting to optimise at the “element” level rather than in respect of the enterprise as a whole. And they imply that many problems occur between departments (elements') rather than in them.

Examines Just‐in‐Time (JIT) from its evolution as a Japanese concept through to a review of its philosophy and implementation. Cites several techniques of implementation. Includes a review of the early work of various researchers and practitioners. Concludes that JIT is a very effective manufacturing philosophy which is universal in nature encompassing all aspects of manufacturing. Suggests a few deficiencies in current literature.

This monograph gives an insight into the evolution of materials management as a form of organisation. Under the question “What is materials management?”, the contents, tasks and relations are described. The advantages of applying the concept of materials management are handled as answers to the question “Why materials management?”. To conclude the article provides an answer to the question “How does one implement materials management?”. This monograph summarises an expanded version published in February 1978 by Martinus Nijhoff, Holland in their series on Applied Business Logistics.]

Since 1973–74, the beginning of the so‐called resources crunch, there has been an increased emphasis upon the role of the procurement function in strategic corporate planning and management. The role of procurement has begun significant change in a number of companies, yet remains in basically an operational mode in others. However, strategic management has often been “borne” out of situational crises imposed by changing environmental factors, rather than as a result of recognition of the strategic potential which management has. In essence, changes often come through reaction to problems, rather than through positive recognition and implementation of strategic management as an initiative itself. This has been particularly true of procurement.

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.

Despite the popularity of existing course management systems, they do not consider the management of course material changes, particularly courses that require more than one instructor. The main purpose of this study is to instantly communicate course material changes to all instructors teaching the same course and to communicate approved changes to students registered on the course.

The fundamental hypothesis tested was whether the developed system effectively communicates changes in a timely manner. The level of students' acceptance to this new system was also tested. A dynamic course material change‐management system was developed using visual basic programming language and an Access database. The system was applied to a hypothetical case study and to a currently running undergraduate civil engineering course.

Results indicated that changes made to a course material were instantly communicated to all instructors teaching the same course. It also indicated that approved changes were instantly communicated to affected students. As a result, students were satisfied with the instant notifications they receive whenever a change takes place.

The proposed system does not include a methodology for online tests, course grades, and course assessment. The system needs to be integrated with these important features. Developments pertaining to integrating the system with these features will be considered for future investigation.

The novel aspect of the developed system is the effective management of challenges made to course material and communicating these changes to instructors and students in a timely manner. The system can benefit any institution at different educational levels.

Design and build (D/B) construction methods have gained more importance in recent years for their potential advantages in improving project performance. There are, however, a number of problems that are commonplace in D/B procurement, which, when they interact with each other, can lead to project time and cost overrun problems. The most important among them are design changes, together with communication and coordination lapses among concerned parties. Past research has focused only on the characteristics of the traditional construction, or separate sub‐systems such as different phases or human resource input to projects. An attempt is made in this paper to improve D/B project time and cost performance. A generic system dynamics model is developed that incorporates major sub‐systems and their relationships inherent in D/B constructions projects. It is validated and calibrated for a typical large D/B infrastructure project using time and cost overrun problems experienced in Thailand. Extensive simulations with many policies, individually or in various combinations, show that improvement in time or cost can be made with proper policy combinations that reflect strong interactions between the whole design and build system and can be derived only if these interactions are accounted for. To achieve overall improvement in both time and cost, the combination of full overtime schedule, average material ordering, and fast track construction with moderate crashing of design is most appropriate. If cost is the focus, extending the construction schedule, combined with material ordering based on actual need, and design and build with traditional construction method is the best solution.