This issue draws the readers' attention to a couple of interesting models that can have major application value in the supply chain world and five research papers that together offer theoretical and practical insights that hold immense value to the practice and research of Supply Chain Management (SCM). Practitioners and researchers can find several new insights that may stimulate thought for their future research in the area of supply chain or logistics management.

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls (VRPB) is an extension of Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) that allows pickup at the end of the delivery tour of vehicle. Among several variants of VRPB, one of the variant that can also serve backhauls before all linehaul customers is called VRP with Mixed Delivery and Pickup (VRPMDP). The paper, "CORE: A Heuristic to Solve Vehicle Routing Problem with Mixed Delivery and Pickup", provides a two-phase heuristic, which is developed to deal with VRPMDP. The two-phased heuristic is called as CORE, which means cluster the nodes based on proximity using modified K-means clustering technique and search using adapted OR-opt for route elitism. While explaining the overall structure of this two-phase heuristic to solve VRPMDP, the authors detail the experimental setup through a real-time problem.

Supplier selection has been the subject of extensive conceptual and empirical work in business management literature, and is widely considered to be one of the most fundamental responsibilities of the purchasing function of the management (Carr and Pearson, 1999; and Vonderembse and Tracey, 1999). The paper, "Decision Framework for Supplier Evaluation and Selection in Supply Chain", describes an efficient decision framework for supplier evaluation and selection in supply chain. The focus of this paper is on how an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-Performance Value Analysis (PVA) algorithm can be used to capture and analyze significant categories and performance indicators to rank the suppliers. The application of decision framework for supplier evaluation and selection has been demonstrated with a case situation.

Manufacturers should adopt best practices to optimize operational processes and lower their cost structure through best inventory strategies. Moving towards zero inventory will result in effective inventory management in the business process. Recent advanced software systems have made Zero Inventory strategy executable. The paper, "Inventory Optimization in Supply Chain: Zero Inventory Approach", covers various inventory optimization models such as Hexagon model, JIT, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), consignment, and the enabling practices. The paper also describes the technologies like Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and networking which help in moving towards Zero Inventory. It also provides few examples where inventory optimization has been successfully implemented.

The supply of leather from the African continent, a big producer of skin and hides in the world, is significant. Ethiopia is considered as the major contributor of raw skin in Africa and has a comparative advantage over others in terms of raw material needed for the tannery sector. The paper, "African Leather Supply Value Chain: An Analysis", highlights some of the major aspects of value added leather supply chain in Africa while throwing light on the largest skin producing country, Ethiopia. While describing both primary and support activities involved in the two stage process of African leather supply chain, the paper highlights the leather processing chain in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. The African leather supply value chain provides an integrated approach to determine the problems and constraints involved from the basic level of rearing animals for the raw skin to the purchase and use of finished leather products. Further, the paper also throws light on the determinants, characteristics, and favorable and unfavorable factors of the African leather supply chain.

India is bestowed with one of the best natural resources in the world and several factors like globalization, information technology, and rise of organized retails are gearing up the Indian food supply chains for a better future. As the Indian population is increasing, the demand for fresh fruits and vegetables is also increasing. Owing to the perishable nature and very short shelf life, these items require proper storage and transportation facilities in order to reach to the customer in a fresh state. However, the entire chain is fraught with issues like lack of transparency in pricing (at the farmers' end), dominance of traders, weak links in supply chain, etc. This is leading to a loss of revenue to the farmer and increased additional costs to the other supply chain partners. The last paper, "Factors Influencing Indian Supply Chains of Fruits and Vegetables: A Literature Review", attempts a thorough review of basic and contemporary literature and tries to explain the factors influencing Indian fruit and vegetable markets and their effects on the supply chain partners. It provides a snapshot of agri-supply chain in India including influencing factors, trends and challenges. It also brings out relevant research gaps and overlooked problems in the supply chain.

- S Jaya Krishna
Consulting Editor.