Systems Thinking in Supply Chain Measurements

Both practitioners and research scientists have noted a number of problems regarding measurement activities during the past decade. The problems reported suggest that measurement activities are fragmented both within and across organizations. This article expands on a systems perspective on supply chain measurements and describes how problems can be communicated, understood and managed by developing methods and tools for describing interrelationships within supply chains. Empirical evidence from a case study of a Swedish home furnishing business supply chain provides data suggesting that firms within a supply chain cannot simply be categorized as either having adopted systems thinking or not. Rather, both structured models indicating a high degree of systems thinking, and problems showing fragmentation, are present. A performance model, which is used to reflect the systemic structure of an underlying supply chain and a potential integrator, is introduced and suggested as the focus of future research initiatives within supply chain measurements.