Principles of Supply Chain Management - A learning Perspective

This is the fourth edition of Supply Chain Management: A Learning Perspective. Since the third edition was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018, the world has undergone profound and far-reaching changes. Among the most transformative developments has been the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI). Public awareness of AI intensified when it challenged the human Baduk master Lee Sedol in 2016, marking a symbolic turning point. Since then, AI has evolved at a pace difficult to capture in ordinary language. Its influence now permeates nearly every aspect of modern life—and certainly every dimension of business.

Motivated by these sweeping changes, I undertook a revision of this book. Yet as I began the process—something I had anticipated for some time—I realized that despite AI’s foundational impact on society, it has not invalidated or weakened the core theories presented in earlier editions. Rather, as AI increasingly functions as societal infrastructure, it becomes both possible and necessary to integrate it seamlessly into established Supply Chain Management principles. The objective of this revision is therefore not to replace foundational theory, but to enrich it through thoughtful integration.

A second motivation arose from 8 years of teaching MBA courses using the third edition published in 2018. Through classroom experience, I observed that certain topic sequences significantly enhance conceptual understanding. This insight led me to reconsider the book’s pedagogical structure to better support learning progression.