Strategic Supply Chain Management - Supply Chain Online

FOREWORD
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to replace the country-based strategies that had been the standard operating
model since Ford Motor Company established operations in Europe in the
1920s. Working with the emerging supply chain management frameworks
and metrics, PRTM helped many clients to use the cross-functional plan,
source, make, and deliver framework to create a vision of integrated
European operations.
One early adopter of the integrated supply chain methodology was
Pitney Bowes. At that time, it had a complex manufacturing and customization
operation that not only was costly but also resulted in long
order fulfillment lead times. Integrated ERP systems functionality was not
available in 1992; in fact, most companies had inherited country-based
models that led to islands of information about customer orders and
in-country inventory levels. To deliver cross-functional (and cross-entity)
integration with a focus on time-based competition, Pitney Bowes developed
a “technology” solution for a pilot program for postal franking
machines destined for the German market. The solution was to install a
fax machine on the manufacturing floor in England. This enabled countryspecific
machine variants to be configured to order, which reduced customer
order lead times by weeks and eliminated finished goods inventory
and configuration activity in country warehouses.
In 1994, PRTM also worked with ICL Computers and Siemens
Nixdorf, Ltd., in the United Kingdom to define future integrated supply
chain architectures using the plan, source, make, and deliver process
framework. In both these projects we used a top-down process design
approach, applying the four-level process logical data modeling at the core
of the Structured Systems Analysis Design Method (SSADM), an early
CASE methodology that we applied to integrated process design. This
modeling approach became part of PRTM’s supply chain project toolkit.
By 1995 it was clear that no standards existed by which our clients
could objectively assess the value of the functionality of the new ERP systems
that were emerging. In collaboration with AMR and a representative
group of companies drawn from our respective client lists, we began to
develop a supply chain process reference model. Many of our clients participated
in giving design input to and reviewing the output of the working
parties engaged in development of the model. In Boston, in November
1996, the SCOR model was presented to an audience of almost 100 major
companies. This meeting resulted in formation of the Supply-Chain
Council (SCC), formally launched in the spring of 1997 as an independent,
not-for-profit organization. The SCOR model was transferred subsequently
to the SCC, which is charged with supporting its development