Development and Application of a Maturity Measurement Framework for Supply Chain Flexibility

AbstractToday's supply chains (SC) are acting in an ever more complex, dynamic and uncertain business environment. Increased customer expectations regarding product variety, shortened product life-cycles and volatile demand motivate the need for supply chain flexibility (SCF) in the face of stiff competition and environmental changes. Flexibility processes implementation in supply chains varies according to companies and SC, due to several factors. The level of awareness of the need for flexibility, the proactive or reactive plan and use of flexibility; and the focus on the SC as a whole or in single companies are examples. The concept of process maturity assumes that the implementation of procedures is carried out in multiple evolutionary and successive stages, which are explicitly defined, managed and measured. Maturity models give companies indicators as well as guidance to analyze and subsequently improve their processes. Despite several SC maturity models in the literature, there is not a model focusing on the maturity of SC flexibility processes, like the one intended in this paper. The levels of the maturity of SCF are (1) none, (2) inter-firm, (3) SC reactive, (4) SC proactive, and (5) SC paradigmatic. Each level has five dimensions: (1) Collaboration, (2) Information Technology, (3) Information flow, (4) Internal flexibility types and (5) Performance measurement. A toy case drawn from the automotive industry illustrates the application of the model from a dyad perspective. Based on the findings, SC flexibility maturity levels are measured in each of the analyzed links and areas for improvement are identified