Comprehensive framework for the development of a supply chain strategy

Current competition among companies is fought through their supply chains. As the performance of the supply chain depends not only on manufacturing and marketing attributes, it becomes necessary to establish a framework upon which to develop a supply chain strategy. The paper presents the rationale and principles of a customer-product-process-resource (CPPR) framework for the simultaneous analysis of the business, supplier, manufacturing, planning, marketing and customer dimensions of a supply chain strategy. The originality of the CPPR framework is that it establishes a set of supply chain structural elements, that when put together determine the degree of alignment of a supply chain strategy. As the main objective of a supply chain strategy is to achieve customer satisfaction as an output of the supply chain operations, the CPPR framework becomes a realignment tool when used in combination with a realignment methodology, which is also presented in the paper.