ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS
Roland Holten, Alexander Dreiling, Michael zur Muehlen, Joerg Becker
Department of Information Systems
University of Muenster
48149 Muenster, Germany
Supply chain management deals with the efficient coordination of enterprises along a value chain to
provide goods and services to end users. While the operational and strategic aspects of supply chain
management have been researched to some extent, one of the questions for enterprises is the
management and controlling of supply chain operations on a tactical level. We discuss the activities
on this level and show the impact of information availability on the operational management of the
supply chain. Using the framework of the Balanced Scorecard, we introduce the Supply Chain
Scorecard as a suitable tool for the controlling of supply chain operations on a higher level of
The provision of goods and services to consumers and the reverse flow of used goods create a
network of organizations that needs to be coordinated in order to function efficiently. While
enterprise management functions are focused on a single organization, the management of supply
chains extends this view to cover neighboring enterprises, up to the supply chain in its entirety. In
order to support this widened scope in an efficient manner, an IT support system is required that
provides supply chain managers with relevant information. Depending on the timeframe of the
managerial activities and the frequency with which they occur, strategic, tactical, and operational
levels of supply chain management can be distinguished . These levels have different information
The strategic level of supply chain management (SCM) is characterized by the management of
relationships between the participating organizations of the supply chain. Establishing supply chain
networks as well as forming strategic partnerships and joint market strategies are major tasks that are
performed at this level. Agreements about information interchange that are negotiated at this level
have a direct impact on the performance of the supply chain as a whole. In section 3 we outline the
benefit of information availability within the supply chain.
The tactical level of supply chain management covers the planning of supplies, manufacturing
schedules, and the forecasting of demand. The major task at this level is to ensure the seamless
operation of the supply chain across the enterprises involved. We discuss the relevant information for
this level as well as tool support using the supply chain scorecard (SC2) in section 4.
The operational level of supply chain management focuses on day-to-day operations within the
independent organizations and the interaction between them. Information requirements at this level
include live updates about ongoing supply chain process instances, metrics about the operational
activities within the supply chain as well as notifications in the event of errors. In section 5 we show
how an integrated process-oriented infrastructure can help obtain information for both, the operational
and tactical level of supply chain management.
2 Related Work
The goals of supply chain management are design, operation and maintenance of integrated value
chains to satisfy consumer needs in the most efficient way by simultaneously maximizing customer
service (see e.g. , , ). Today, SCM is accepted as a concept integrating inter-organizational
business processes and comprises other concepts such as Efficient Consumer Response, Quick
Response, Continuous Replenishment and Customer Relationship Management . The design of
supply chains requires the specification of business processes and supply chain wide planning
routines as special task of the development of information systems as the backbone of any supply
chain integration. Information technology is widely perceived as the enabler of supply chain
integration (, ). Enterprises participating as partners in a supply chain have to provide their
activities in a way that maximizes the supply chain efficiency. Thus, they have to concentrate on their
core competencies .
The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model provided by the SUPPLY CHAIN COUNCIL
specifies inter-organizational business processes and their information flows . The SCOR Model
contains measures for operational control and best practices of supply chain design. There are five
main processes characterizing the SCOR Model: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver and Return. The SCOR
Model is organized in four hierarchical levels as shown in Figure 1. The main processes are defined
on the top level (level one). On the second level these main processes are clustered into process
categories depending on the underlying process model. There are three relevant business categories
of the SCOR Model on this level, which are "Make-to-Stock", "Make-to-Order", and "Engineer-to-
Order". Additionally, on level two some enabling processes are identified.
The highest level of detail within the SCOR Model is the third level where every process category
of level two is refined by inter-related process elements such as the ones shown in the lower right part
of figure 1. The processes and their relationships are defined using tables. The lower left of the figure
shows an example for the definition of the process step “Schedule Product Deliveries”.
Level four is not covered by the SCOR Model since it would contain the detailed description of the
internal business processes of the cooperating enterprises. The SCOR Model is a reference model for
structure, processes, and information flow within an inter-organizational supply chain. As a result, the
SCOR model needs to be extended with a framework for the adjustment of internal and external
business processes in order to align an existing process infrastructure with the inter-organizational
processes that are the result of a SCOR approach.
# Description Schematic Comments
Plan Level 1 defines the scope and content for
Top Level the Supply Chain Operations Reference-
(Process Types) Source Make Deliver model. Here basis of competition
Supply Chain Operations Reference-model
performance targets are set.
2 A company´s supply chain can be
"configured-to-order" at Level 2 from 26
Configuration Level core "process categories." Companies
(Process Categories) implement their operations strategy
through the configuration they choose for
the supply chain.
3 Process Element Level Level 3 defines a company´s ability to
(Decompose compete succesfully in its chosen markets,
Processes) and consists of:
Process element definitions
P1.1 Process element information inputs,
Identify, Prioritize and and outputs
Aggregate Supply-Chain P1.3 P1.4
Requirements Process performance metrics
Balance Production Establish and Best practices, where applicable
P1.2 Ressources with Supply- Communicate Supply-
Chain Requirements Chain Plans System capabilities required to
Identify, Asses and
support best practices
Companies "fine tune" their Operations
Strategy at Level 3.
4 Companies implement specific supply-
scope Implementation Level chain management practices at this level.
(Decompose Process Level 4 defines practices to achieve
Elements) competitive advantage and to adapt to
changing business conditions.
Process Element: Schedule Product Deliveries Process Element Number: S1.1
S1: Source Stocked Products
Process Element Definiton
Scheduling and managing the execution of the individual deliveries of products against an existing (P2.4) Sourcing Plans
contract or purchase order. The requirements for product release are determined based on the (ES.2) Source Execution Data
detailed sourcing plan or other types of product pull signals. (M1.1, M2.1, M3.2) Production Schedule (Supplier) Sourced Products
Performance Attributes Metric (M1.2, M2.2, M3.3, D1.3) Replenishment
Total Source Lead Time % of EDI Transactions Signals
Flexibility and Responsiveness
Cost Product management and Planing Costs as a % of Product
Reliability % Defective, Defective parts per million (dppm) Completion to
budget and scope of service description S1.1 S1.2 S1.3
Asset Raw Material or product Days of Supply
Best practice Features Reveice Verify
Utilized EDI transaction to reduce cycle Deliveries
EDI interface for 830, 850, 856 & 862 transactions
time and costs
VMI agreements allow suppliers tomanage Supplier managed inventories with scheduling interfaces to
(replenish) inventory external suppliers systems
Mechanical (Kanban) pull signals areused
to notify suppliers of the need Electronic Kanban support Receipt Verification Receipt
to deliver product Procurement Signal (Supplier) Verification
(ES.1, ES.2, ES.6,
Consignment agreements are used Sourced Product on Order (P2.2), (ES.9) ES.8) (ES.1,ES.2)
to reduce assets and cycle time while Consignment inventory management Scheduled Receipts (M1.1, M2.1, M3.2, D1.8)
increasing the availability of critical item
Advanced ship notices allow for right (M) (D) Product Pull Signals
Banket order support with scheduling interfaces to external (ES.4) Product Inventory Location (ES.9) Payment
synchronization between source and make
supplier systems (EM) WIP Inventory Location Terms
(ED) Finished Goods Inventory
Inputs Plan Source Make Deliver
Sourcing Plans P2.4
Source Execution Data ES.2
Logistic Selection ES.6 S1.4 S1.5
Production Schedule M1.1, M2.1, M3.2
Replenishment Signals M1.2, M2.2, M3.3 D1.3 Transfer
Outputs Plan Source Make Deliver
Procurement Signal (Supplier)
Sourced Product on Order P2.2 ES.9
Scheduled receipts M1.1, M2.1, M3.2
(P2.2, ES.4, M1.2, M2.2,
Figure 1: Organization of the SCOR Model 
Parallel to the SCOR model, several standardization initiatives have published documents that
focus on the design of supply chain processes. The ROSETTANET consortium, for example, is a non-
profit group of more than 400 companies in the information technology and electronics domain which
aims at standardizing the trading networks between these companies by providing standards for
business documents (e.g. purchase orders) as well as so-called partner interface processes (PIPs),
which define process interaction between trading partners (e.g. acknowledgement of receipt etc.) .
An early report on process-oriented controlling was provided by MCLELLAN . He gives an
overview of the analysis of historical process data and discusses the evaluation of workflow history
data as workflow metrics. The controlling applications described are statistical evaluations as well as
the run-time detection of late cases and overdue tasks.
3 The Impact of Information Availability on Supply Chain Management
Several studies have shown that there is a positive effect of information sharing along the supply
chain. In , , and  several authors have estimated savings in an information sharing supply
chain using simulation models. The focus of this chapter is not to quantify the effect of information
sharing along supply chains and thus proofing the effect, but to presume a positive effect and give
simple model-based explanations for it.
The integration level of material and inventory management and the structure of order costs are the
main parameters of supply chain management . We illustrate this using a simple model of
inventory development and the effects of an integrated material and inventory management on order
costs (see figure 2) . Three variables are relevant to calculate the economic ordering quantity,
which are warehousing costs, costs per unit, and costs per order. For simplicity reasons the costs per
unit are assumed to be constant (the results were the same if discounts on certain order sizes were
taken into consideration). Warehousing costs increase linearly with an increase in ordering quantity
since they are directly bound to the inventory level. The cost per order decreases with an increasing
order size because fixed costs are allocated among more units. The total cost function is the sum of
these three functions as shown in the top left model of figure 2.
Figure 2: Effects of information availability on material and
inventory management and ordering costs
The development of inventory over time is shown in the top right model of figure 2. A certain
safety stock is required to guarantee production in cases of supply shortages. In the beginning we
assume a stock above this level. Furthermore, we assume a linear consumption function over time.
Based on a given delivery time we can determine the reorder point for the economic ordering
It is important to understand that information itself never has a direct value for business. There are
always indirect effects of information on business. Two of the relevant effects of improved
information availability for the management of supply chain processes can be explained using the
simple model introduced:
1. Information availability enables an enterprise to reduce the average stock level by reducing
safety stocks and delivery times.
2. Information availability enables an enterprise to reduce the average stock level by
increasing order frequencies.
Using information correctly ensures that required materials can be delivered on time. This effect is
simply based on the exchange of information between partners along the business process (compare
the center model of figure 2). If production planning systems of manufacturers and scheduling
systems of suppliers are automatically provided with point of sale information of the retail partner,
planning tasks can be performed with a higher quality. The result is a reduction of delivery times
since this time is not only the shipment time but additionally the time used to organize the entire
business transaction, which can be decreased dramatically. The effects discussed so far clearly argue
for an integrated material management.
The second effect is based on the duration of contracts between supply chain partners. Based on
long term agreements the costs per order can be reduced, because some uncertainty for suppliers and
manufacturers is eliminated. In the simple model introduced in figure 2 this results in a left shift of
the total cost function and a reduced minimum of the economic order quantity (compare bottom left
model of figure 2). This implicates an increase in order frequencies which is economically reasonable
(compare bottom right model of figure 2). To benefit from this effect, which lead to a reduced
average inventory level because of reduced order sizes, an integration of material and finance
management is necessary .
4 Tools for Supply Chain Process Management
4.1 Process Life Cycle
The efficient implementation of business processes following a process model is a key factor for
the successful deployment of supply chain operations. Development, design and enactment of
business processes form a life cycle that has been described by several authors as a closed loop (see
e.g. ). Figure 3 shows such a life-cycle starting with the definition of the business process to be
implemented followed by the implementation of the process model. The enactment of the process
delivers run-time data of processed instances which can be passed on to a process monitoring phase
where running process instances are surveyed. Data collected during the execution of the business
processes, so-called audit data, is fed back to an ex-post analysis of process instances, which then
generates information for the process redesign phase.
While the definition, modeling and enactment of supply chain processes is well understood, less
documents can be found that deal with analysis and business intelligence aspects of supply chain
processes. According to the life cycle described above, two kinds of process analysis can be
distinguished: process monitoring and process controlling.
Business Process Business Process
Information Business Process Model
Business Process Business Processes
Performance Analysis Implementation
Business Process Business Process
Audit Data (historic) Business Process Execution Rules
Business Process Business Process Business Process
Execution Rules Monitoring Audit Data (active)
Figure 3: Business Process Lifecycle
4.2 From Process Monitoring to Supply Chain Monitoring
Process monitoring deals with the supervision and analysis of process instances at run-time .
Using monitoring information, administrators and process managers can adjust the behavior of
current process instances and react to problems that arise during process enactment. Furthermore,
process monitoring can be used to improve the responsiveness of an organization to customer
inquiries. When the current state of a process instance can be automatically tracked, questions such as
“Who is handling purchase order 0815?” can be answered in an efficient manner.
The analysis of current processes in the supply chain is a task of operational supply chain
management, as described in section 1. Using a formal process definition as the framework for
analysis, managers are enabled to detect deviations from agreed-upon process paths as well as
differences in material or financial flows.
Since monitoring activities are performed in real-time an automated system is necessary that
collects relevant monitoring metrics across the entire supply chain (inter-organizational monitoring)
and merges this information with detailed monitoring data from the business processes of the
individual organizations (intra-organizational monitoring).
4.3 From Process Controlling to Supply Chain Controlling
Process controlling deals with the ex-post analysis of business process audit data . The
analysis can either be performed at the instance level, or single process instances can be aggregated
according to different criteria. Process controlling is useful for the evaluation of existing process
models often resulting in process remodeling. Thus, its effects are more fundamental than the results
of process monitoring.
Supply chain controlling is based on traditional process controlling, but it extends the scope of the
business processes to the entire supply chain. Thus, supply chain controlling can be accomplished
using the same methods as for process controlling adapted to the needs of inter-organizational
cooperation. One instrument for process controlling is data warehousing. A data warehouse can be
used to store materialized views on business processes to support the management’s information
requirements (). OLAP operations can be applied to a data warehouse supporting different views
on the supply chain eventually hiding the complexity of the entire supply chain .
To support hierarchical supply chain controlling, the structure of controlling information in the data
warehouse has to be defined. Using hierarchical process designs as a source of the audit trail data and
assigning cost information to single activities the idea of OLAP can be applied to entire supply
chains. The fact table of the data warehouse then consists of single process instances with time stamps
and assigned resources as key attributes as well as assigned metrics. Hierarchies are defined in lookup
tables regardless of the data warehouse scheme employed.
4.4 Using the Supply Chain Scorecard (SC2) as a Controlling Tool
The balanced scorecard was developed by KAPLAN and NORTON as a tool to support the
implementation and measurement of strategic goals within an enterprise . It consists of four
perspectives each of which contains a distinct set of outcome measures (lag indicators) and
performance drivers (lead indicators). The financial perspective covers the core measures of a
corporation's financial success, such as return on capital employed or certain cash-flow indicators.
The process perspective contains indicators from the internal business processes of the company in
question, for example error rates, turnover times, or resource utilization. The customer perspective
contains information about the market segments and customers of the company. The learning and
growth perspective deals with objectives and measures for organizational learning and knowledge
management. Depending on organization, domain and market, different implementations of the
balanced scorecard can be found in practice.
Based on the ideas of the balanced scorecard the concept of supply chain scorecard (SC2) is
introduced to organize the required management perspectives for supply chain process management.
The supply chain scorecard is based on the usage and structure of measures and performance
indicators. In this paper we outline the use of the perspectives SC2-Processes and SC2-Finance.
The process perspective contains measures with regard to material management and process
performance. Central measures are material turn over rates and stock cycles as average time of
coverage. The use of time- and value based metrics from the local processes of the participant enables
the forecasting of delivery times along the supply chain, which can increase customer satisfaction for
build-to-order scenarios. Using process metrics, organizations are able to pass on “early warning”
data about early or late shipments, allowing for a better resource allocation and seamless transitions
between the local processes.
The financial perspective of the SC2 contains financial metrics and indicators relevant to the supply
chain as a global process. A cash return from investments is important to both, the supply chain as a
whole and the individual participants. Cash Flow Cycles (CFC) are designed to monitor this
information. A CFC is defined as the average time of payment given to pay for suppliers’ services and
goods. In order to integrate material and finance management the CFC needs to be linked to the
material flows within the supply chain, since no financing should be required within the supply chain.
Financing requirements would ultimately lead to higher consumer prices. Therefore, CFC indicators
are important measures of the finance perspective and should be related to measures of the process
A useful measure is the Cash Flow Cycle Rate (CFCR) which is defined as the relation between the
Cash Flow Cycle and the Stock Cycle. The CFCR should be always larger than 1, which implies that
goods are being sold faster than they are paid for. It is crucial that the CFC Rates are not only
considered for local partners but also for the supply chain as a whole. This in fact mandates that
financial conditions have to be integrated virtually across the supply chain.
5 An Architectural Framework for Supply Chain Process Management
Supply chain controlling requires the integration of inter-organizational data into one global
information repository for the supply chain. In addition, intra-organizational metrics need to be
published to the participants in order to streamline operations along the supply chain. Since the
technology landscape in today’s companies is heterogeneous an integration layer is necessary to
retrieve monitoring and controlling data. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) vendors as well as
workflow suppliers are enhancing their products with features to integrate components across
different enterprises. Figure 4 shows an architectural framework for supply chain controlling
The integration of corporate information systems for the operational enactment of supply chain
processes can be achieved using messaging mechanisms or EAI middleware, depending on the
existing infrastructure. While currently a large number of interoperability standards exists, a
consolidation of the number of standards is very likely. Approaches such as SOAP, ebXML,
ROSETTANET and WSDL have found widespread acceptance and form a complementing framework
of XML standards for inter-organizational messaging applications. While the operational aspects of
business-to-business interactions are quite well defined, the generation of analytical data from the
operational processes is lacking a standardized foundation. Therefore, we propose the use of
established data warehousing architectures and tools to collect supply chain monitoring and
The integration of both, local and global information sources can be achieved using traditional
integration concepts based on extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) tools. While the existing
infrastructure of an individual organization is barely touched, certain organizational constraints have
to be considered. Since supply chain controlling information is published to all enterprises involved,
privacy and confidentiality concerns have to be addressed. Especially the sharing of internal cost data
among supply chain participants is most probably a critical issue. In order to address concerns of this
sort, a refined access control structure for supply chain managers as well as storage and usage of
supply chain monitoring and controlling data need to be negotiated among the participants.
Figure 4: Architectural Framework for Supply Chain Controlling
6 Summary and Outlook
In this paper we have discussed the impact of information availability on supply chain operations.
In order to benefit from lower inventory levels and shorter reorder times, a technical infrastructure is
necessary to obtain the relevant information from the parties involved in the supply chain. A
workflow-based controlling environment, serving operational level supply chain managers through
the provision of global monitoring information, as well as tactical supply chain management through
the integration of process data into an OLAP environment, is a feasible architecture for this purpose.
The supply chain scorecard can serve as a tool for the management of supply chain operations at a
tactical level, integrating financial and process information in a comprehensive manner.
Our future research will focus on the enhancement of the supply chain scorecard with additional
perspectives and additional performance indicators. The integration of local and global controlling
information will be another aspect of our future work.
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