A method to compare supply chains of an industry

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to compare supply chains (SCs) of an industry in the scope of supplier's supplier to customer's customer.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed method is based on five processes provided in SCOR model version 9.0 (plan, source, make, deliver and return) and main business stages of the industry. It uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and PROMETHEE II, a multiple criteria decision‐making technique, as tools to compare SCs in the process level, business stage level and SC level. Therefore, the method is basically a new combination of existing models and methods including SCOR model, DEA and PROMETHEE II. To show the applicability and strength of the method in comparing SCs, it has been implemented in the seven SCs of the Iran broiler industry as a case study.

Findings

Comparing SCs of an industry via the proposed method results in process benchmarking, business stage benchmarking and SCs ranking in the scope of supplier's supplier to customer's customer.

Originality/value

The suggested method provides realistic and attainable information for SCs' owner/managers to find out the strengths and weaknesses of their SCs and improve their performance by process benchmarking and business stage benchmarking. Also they could identify their competitive position in the industry by SCs ranking.

Citation

Jalalvand, F., Teimoury, E., Makui, A., Aryanezhad, M.B. and Jolai, F. (2011), "A method to compare supply chains of an industry", Supply Chain Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 82-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/13598541111115347