A benchmarking scheme for supply chain collaboration

Abstract

Intense competition forces companies to become involved in supply chain collaboration with their upstream and downstream partners. The key to ensuring that the participating members are progressing on the right track of creating the best-in-class practice is to conduct benchmarking. Benchmarking stimulates collective learning for performance improvement that brings benefits to all participating members. However, previous research has focused mainly on supply chain benchmarking at the intra-company -- rather than the inter-company -- level. Inter-company benchmarking requires a new perspective for understanding collaborative learning amongst the participating members that encourages them to improve supply chain performance as a whole. This research aims to develop a benchmarking scheme for supply chain collaboration that links collaborative performance metrics and collaborative enablers. The proposed benchmarking scheme can be used to examine the current status of supply chain collaboration among the participating members, identify performance gaps and systematize improvement initiatives. © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited