Proposing a quick best practice maturity test for supply chain operations

The purpose of this paper is to propose a quick maturity test to assist a company's development of a supply chain operations strategy. Maturity tests and models have been developed within several areas, but there is a lack of maturity tests targeting supply chain operations.

A literature review on maturity models is carried out in order to build the structure of the test, while a literature review on best practices in supply chain management is the basis for the test content.

The proposed maturity test is an audit scheme built on best practice statements within seven key strategic decision areas – strategy, control, processes, materials, resources, information and organisation. The test is designed with simplicity as a key feature and takes only one hour to complete. The test results are the input to strategic decisions regarding use of best practices in supply chain operations.

Supply chain managers ask for a simple and quick tool that can be used as an eye‐opener and a compass early in the development process of the supply chain operations strategy. The proposed test has a proven potential to point out directions for supply chain improvement areas.

There is a need for a quick assessment tool for mapping the maturity of a company's supply chain operations. The proposed test is a potential answer to this need.