There's no question that when it comes to the supply chain, inventory management, production and logistics, there's a whole list of terms with quite specific meanings. In fact, there are 3,500 of them. At least that's how many terms are defined in the just released 11^th edition of the APICS Dictionary. More than 2,500 of the terms are illustrated. The dictionary is available both in print and on CD-ROM at www.apics.org.

APICS is the professional association for people involved with inventory and production control. And as of the first of this month, it changed its name to APICS – The Association for Operations Management. It was previously known as The Association for Resource Management.