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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000000348. When citing the article, please cite: Lisa M. Ellram, Bernard J. La Londe, Mary Margaret Weber, (1989), “Retail Logistics”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management, Vol. 19 Iss: 12, pp. 29 - 39.

The results from a survey of top retailing executives regarding current logistics practices and trends are described. The focus is on customer service factors, the use of a supply chain management approach in retailing channels, and the impact of information technology on retail logistics today and in the future. Information technologies discussed include electronic data interchange, point of sale and barcoding. The article concludes that based on the importance that retailers attach to customer service, supply chain management and information technology, the 1990s will likely be an exciting and challenging time in the management of the retail logistics function.

The need for increased flexibility in responding to market demand is driving a heightened interest in virtual, or agile organizations. However, agile response in the supply chain may not always be necessary and may not always be a better alternative than more traditional organizational structures. The model proposed in this paper provides a means of measuring both the need for agility and how agile an organization actually is. This is accomplished through the use of a hierarchical model that details with increasing specificity sources and levels of variance in the supply chain. As the ability to control specified variances increase, the need for agility decreases.

In the 1970s and early 1980s several studies recommended using a framework based on a 1977 Hulbert and Toy model for analyzing marketing variances. Proposes adaptation of the model to control the processes of sales planning and sales performance, not the performance of individuals as originally advocated ten to 15 years ago. Emphasizes process improvement, rather than people measurement, consistent with the current quality movement that so many firms have embraced. Implementation of the Hulbert and Toy model requires generation of a revised plan. By comparing the original plan, the revised plan, and actual results, management can identify where improvements in the planning processes may be achieved. The objective is to reduce variation between actual and planned sales. Suggests that reduced planning variances yield a higher quality plan and a more harmonious operation.

Develops and estimates efficiency and productivity measures in the US trucking and warehousing industry in the 48 contiguous states during the years 1994‐2000. The model, estimated via data envelopment analysis, accounts for both desirable outputs and undesirable outputs produced by a given vector of inputs. The model establishes an efficient frontier of operation for each year studied and can be used to determine, on an annual basis, which of the 48 states operate on the frontier. The findings indicate that the trucking and warehousing industry does not operate efficiently in all 48 states during the period studied. If the industry were to operate on the frontier of the feasible output set by using inputs to produce outputs efficiently, it could eliminate three to four fatal traffic accidents per state per year, while simultaneously increasing industry income by between $38 to $47 million per state per year. In addition, finds that traditional techniques of estimating efficiency that ignore traffic fatalities bias estimates of efficiency and total factor productivity growth.

During the past 20 years, US retailing has gone through a period of unprecedented change as consumer demands and competition have intensified. This change is being further stimulated by the development of e‐commerce. Study of successful retailers indicates that a retailer’s ability to successfully carve out and defend a competitive position in the marketplace depends, to a great extent, on its ability to make investments in and utilize information. The study described in this paper examined the use of technology in retailing. The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying factors explaining why retailers adopt POS and EDI. The results indicate that retailers are adopting these technologies to achieve direct, indirect, and strategic benefits. These benefits take the form of improved inventory management, reductions in costs, and increased flexibility of response to customer demands.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the agility performance level of manufacturing supply chains using Taguchi loss functions (TLFs) and design of experiment (DoE).

The proposed methodology is used for capturing the various agility losses using appropriate TLFs and the aggregated agility loss is calculated at different situations using DoE. The aggregated agility loss is analysed for comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance.

The proposed methodology was applied to three Indian auto component supply chains, i.e. X, Y and Z. In total, 27 experiments were carried out using DoE and obtained results show that agility performance level is the highest for X followed by Z, whereas agility performance level is the least for Y.

The proposed methodology is generic in nature and can be applied to a specific environment for comparing performance of different supply chains. The user has to identify the relevant agility enablers and capture the appropriate TLFs for the specific environment in which agility performance level has to be calculated and compared.

The proposed methodology provides an effective approach for evaluating agility performance. It can be used by the supply chain manger to assess the supply chain agility performance level of own company with its competitors. These comparisons will help the manufacturing company to find the areas where it should focus.

Many studies and researches related to implementation and evaluation of agile manufacturing are reported in the literature but very few studies are available for evaluating the supply chain agility performance. This study will definitely provide a guideline for measuring and comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance in general and Indian automotive supply chain in specific.

The purpose of this paper is to model the tradeoffs among fatalities, CO₂ emissions and value generated by the truck transportation portion of supply chains with the goal of determining if efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions increase transportation‐related fatalities.

The joint production of CO₂, fatalities, and truck transport value in the 50 US states during 2002‐2007 is modeled using data envelopment analysis. The directional output distance function is estimated under two assumptions: strong and weak disposability of CO₂ emissions. This provides the means of calculating shadow prices that estimate the cost of reducing CO₂ emissions.

The authors' findings indicate that the transfer of resources to the reduction of CO₂ emissions will result in a statistically significant increase in fatalities and a statistically significant decrease in value of transport from truck transport.

The model presented is based on secondary data from the Federal Highway Statistics Series, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The model developed demonstrates tradeoffs among sustainability‐related variables.

The model presented in the paper uses shadow prices to assess sustainability‐related tradeoffs in supply chains. While this method has been used in other fields, this is its first use in supply chain studies.