As mentioned, the SCOR model and its engineering process counterparts provide an excellent framework for analyzing how to improve an enterprise's end-to-end processing. We will apply this model, in conjunction with the supply chain maturity model and maturity matrices (to be introduced), to explain the path to the highest appropriate level of supply chain progress, keeping in mind that there are widely differing interpretations of these processes by companies at different levels of supply chain sophistication. The simple silo-based planning of a level 1 company, shared in an ad hoc way with neighboring internal departments, for example, compares to the complex, reactive planning of a level 4 or 5 network, with collaborative, interactive comparisons of schedules up and down key threads in the network. The naive "replace and scrap" policy for returns in level 1 supply chains contrasts with the more sophisticated approaches of higher level organizations, which are planning the cost-effective reentry of refurbished products into the flow.

It is these different levels of application of the basic process models and the value that can be generated that the authors have come to understand. For a firm to generate value from the supply chain journey and become part of the process-enabled extended enterprise requires the creation of a guiding process maturity roadmap.

Table 1.1 is a matrix that is useful for establishing such a roadmap. The matrix takes the top-level SCOR processes Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, and Return and sets out...