Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR)

Supply Chain

The supply chain operations reference model (SCOR) is a management tool used to address, improve, and communicate supply chain management decisions within a company and with suppliers and customers of a company. The model describes the business processes required to satisfy a customer’s demands. It also helps to explain the processes along the entire supply chain and provides a basis for how to improve those processes.

The SCOR model is intended to help standardize the process and create a measurable way to track results. It works across industries using common definitions that apply to any supply chain process. Using the SCOR model, businesses can judge how advanced or mature a supply chain process is and how well it aligns with business goals.

SCOR Primary Processes

The SCOR model is based on six management processes:

Plan

The plan process includes determining resources, requirements, and the chain of communication for a process to ensure it aligns with business goals. This includes developing best practices for supply chain efficiency.

Source

The source process covers procuring goods and services to meet planned or actual demand.

Make

The make process includes taking finished products and making them market-ready to meet planned or actual demand.

Deliver

The deliver process includes order management, warehousing, and transportation. It also includes receiving orders from customers and invoicing them once product has been received.

Return

The return process covers steps for returning or receiving returned products for any reason, either from customers or suppliers. These processes extend into post-delivery customer support.

Enable

This includes processes associated with the management of the supply chain. These processes include management of: business rules, performance, data, resources, facilities, contracts, supply chain network management, managing regulatory compliance and risk management.

Measuring SCOR Performance

There are three levels used to measure supply chain performance that help standardize supply chain performance metrics so that companies can be evaluated against other businesses.

Level 1: Defining the scope of the supply chain, including geographies, segments, and context. At this level, the focus is on the six main process configurations described above.
Level 2: Configuration of the supply chain, including geographies, segments, and products. At Level 2, metrics are high level and evaluated across multiple SCOR processes. This level includes subtype categories that fall under the “parent” categories found in Level 1.
Level 3: Process element details, identifying key business activities within the chain. They represent the best practice detailed processes that belong to each of the Level 2 “parents”.