Analysis of Business Processes in Supply Chain: An Interpretive Structural Modeling Approach

The supply chain operations reference model (SCOR) is a useful management tool to support supply chain management. In this model, the supply chain is considered as running through different business processes linked by various flows so it is necessary to reveal the structure of the SCOR network. The interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is a methodology used to impose order and direction on the complexity of relationship among components of a system. Whereas previous studies have identified the business processes in the SCOR model, few studies have attempted to explore the structural relationship between these processes using the ISM approach. This study demonstrates how ISM supports executives in identifying and understanding flows among supply chain processes. ISM helps to classify and rank the business processes based on the driving power and dependencies, as well as provides a hierarchical structure displaying the business processes affecting the implementation of the supply chain network. A study case is used to illustrate the procedure. The results are useful to understand the existing supply chain SCOR model and obtain managerial insights.