Before going further, it is necessary to define a way to evaluate the competitive merits of a particular supply chain network design. A portion of the evaluation method is presented here in Chapter 4 as it relates to network design, and a portion of the evaluation method is presented in Chapter 7 as it relates to network operations. The method is used during the successive refinement of a network design to determine the relative competitiveness of each design change. It can also be used to compare the relative competitiveness of your current network design versus a competitor s network design.

The method is a set of relative measurements plotted on a spider diagram. A spider diagram, also called a radar chart in Microsoft Excel, is a simple graphical device that facilitates the simultaneous consideration of a number of important attributes. Each attribute is plotted on a separate, independent axis that radiates from the central point of the diagram, see Figure 4-4. Normally, a spider diagram is a full circle with each axis radiating away from the center and equidistantly spaced around the circle. Because this Chapter is focused on network design, only the top half of the circle is shown. The sides of the circle are focused on network operations, as discussed in detail in Chapter 7. The bottom of the circle is focused on value, as discussed in Chapter 9. This book calls the entire diagram the value circle.

Figure 4-4: Measuring...