ABSTRACT
For any company, delivering products and services to customers is a significant challenge. In an era of global competition, product proliferation, limited shelf space, and ever rising customer expectations for convenience and instant gratification, building an adequate distribution system is time-consuming and expensive. Most companies attempt to meet this challenge by bringing ever greater amounts of control, precision, stability, discipline, reliability, and most of all, efficiency to their distribution systems. The problem is, the term itself, “distribution system,” reflects an inside-out mindset.
