Measurements of efficiency in a supply chain

Sammanfattning: This licentiate thesis addresses the topic of measurements in the Supply chain and specifically measurements of Supply chain efficiency. This thesis has the following objectives: - To present ways of measuring performance of the Supply chain. - To present ways of measuring cost in the Supply chain. - To suggest a quantitative method to evaluate how efficient a Supply chain is and combining the cost concept with the performance concept. - To discuss and evaluate on which organisation level in the individual company the Supply chain efficiency preferably should be measured. The thesis contains nine chapters. Chapter two to four include a literature review of Supply chain, Supply Chain Management, efficiency, methods and definitions for performance measurements of the Supply chain and Supply Chain Costs. Chapter 5 describes an empirical study where 30 companies are interviewed. All companies are based and have production and business in Sweden; many of them are also large companies with business worldwide. Three companies from ten different groups or branches are interviewed. The ten different branches are: Manufacturing industry Pharmaceutical/ medical technology industry Telecommunication industry Commodity industry Consumer products industry Contract manufacturer Materials Automobile industry Paper industry Construction industry An index for measuring efficiency in a Supply chain is presented in chapter 7. The index is based on concepts and theories presented in chapter 2 to 4 and the empirical study. The model is combining cost and performance. The index is tested on Ericsson AB and this is presented in chapter 8. Final conclusions and extensions are presented in chapter 9.