ARTICLE IN PRESS

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doi:10.1016/j.ijp

Int. J. Production Economics 106 (2007) 1

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe

Editorial

Contextualisation of supply chain networks

The papers published in this special issue of IJPEwere selected from among those presented at 9thInternational Symposium in Logistics held at IndianInstitute of Management, Bangalore on 11–14 July2004. This particular event was part of an EuropeanUnion funded project ‘USER-MIND’ under theAsia IT & C Programme. The conference focus wason logistics and supply chains as it reflects thecurrent climate of movement towards a single globalmarket where business continually have to reducecost and at the same time provide superior service inorder to remain competitive. This situation isfurther exacerbated by the increased customerdemands in terms of better products, lower prices,quick response and efficient service. The dynamicand fluid environment in which the companies haveto operate is pushing them into new frontiers interms of complex and technology enabled networks.

This issue contains eight papers out of about onehundred presented at the conference. The authorswere invited to submit expanded versions in theform of full papers for the normal peer reviewprocess followed by IJPE. The papers were fullyreviewed by two independent referees and based onthe comments final submission of the acceptedpapers was updated for the publication in this issue.

The underlying research theme of the papersincluded in this issue is ‘logistics and supply chains’

front matter r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

e.2006.04.001

covering a range of industry sectors, and within avalue chain it has papers on new product develop-ment and reverse logistics. The papers cover theapplication of a variety of methods used in logisticsand supply chain management. This includesanalytical models, optimisation, and data collectionusing survey methods and case study basedapproaches.

We hope that the research and practitionerscommunity in the field of logistics and supplychains in different sectors will find the contents ofthis issue useful and intellectually appealing. Theeditors would like to take this opportunity togratefully acknowledge all the contributors andanonymous referees for their help and support.

C.S. LalwaniUniversity of Hull Logistics Institute,

Hull Business School, Hull HU6 7RX, UK

E-mail address: c.s.lalwani@hull.ac.uk

K.S. PawarNottingham Business School, Nottingham, UK

J. ShahIndian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India

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