Monitoring Supply Chain Flows through Improved Performance Measurement of Extended Processes

Abstract

Increasing strategic importance of logistics-related processes demands a higher integration of performance management and supply chain management. Despite the increasing focus on supply chain management and business collaboration, studies in the area of performance management still narrowly look at the single enterprise and its “within-enterprise” processes. Most of these existing studies are losing relevance in today’s industrial dynamics, where business models, such as that of the supply chain, are merely the tip of an emerging trend in new organization alliances, boundary redefinition, and market structures. This chapter goes beyond existing work to develop a better understanding of the issue of performance management from a supply chain management perspective. The goal is to demonstrate how today’s manufacturing systems and processes could be measured and managed in the context of the extended business of which they are part—back through the supplier chain and forward into the distribution and customer chain. The chapter’s intended major outcomes for its readers are: a clearer understanding of the concept of supply chain management through performance, and a process for designing a supply chain performance measurement system. Additional information emerges throughout the chapter.