Most benchmarking services measure operational performance and perhaps offer a qualitative maturity model to measure the adoption of business practices. AMR Research’s supply chain benchmarking service is the first and only benchmarking service that quantitatively measures business performance and technology usage, providing insight into which leading technology and business practices create improvements in operational performance against competitors and best-in-class companies.

The AMR Research Difference

As co-founder of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model, AMR Research has long focused on the metrics that matter. The AMR Benchmark Analytix Service is designed to provide high-quality, enterprise-wide measurement and analysis that enables companies to do the following:

• Prioritize critical resources and projects based on your business strategy
• Baseline performance before a process, or technology implementation
• Recognize areas that need improvement and interdependencies across functional silos
• Determine which strategic investments are critical to success
• Develop a key performance indicator (KPI) program

Supply Chain Management Metrics
The supply chain benchmark covers eight high-level operational processes:

• Request to quotation
• Order to delivery/cash
• Perfect order fulfillment
• Inventory management
• Source and make (with cash to cash)
• Operational planning
• New product development time
• Supply chain management costs

Each of these contains 2-8 sub-component metrics. In addition, this module covers the technology and practice enablers that support supply chain performance:

• 13 packaged applications that support the supply chain
• 13 best practices that support supply chain activities
• 8 e-business capabilities (i.e., to what extent you are connected to suppliers, customers and logistics providers/carriers)

Detailed instructions, definitions, and calculations are provided to ensure that each company calculates usage of these enablers in the same way.

Process, Resources, and Time Frame

The process begins with a structured kickoff meeting to review the questionnaire, answer questions, and assign responsibilities. The data collection period is targeted for four weeks of elapsed time, with a total of 1-2 person-weeks of effort. Each company assigns a benchmarking coordinator to manage the data collection effort. The questions are typically split up among 4-6 people in the company, each of which can expect to spend between 30 minutes to 2 hours on their portion.

Unlike online benchmarking services, a team of AMR Research benchmarking analysts and industry experts works closely with you to collect, analyze, and interpret benchmarking data. This hands-on approach guides you through data collection, ensuring consistent, board-level quality data that is  apples to apples with that collected by comparable companies.

Two additional levels of data comparability checks are built in to the process. Detailed instructions in the questionnaire specify definition, algorithms, and calculations to be used for each metric, and cross-checks are built in to catch inadvertent inconsistencies. In addition, once your data has been received, the benchmarking team reviews it with you, questioning and verifying the metrics to ensure that your understanding and calculations are comparable to the rest of the peer group.

Once we have finalized your data with you, we analyze your results with our industry and supply chain experts, and generate your custom report detailing the results. We send you the report, and schedule a results briefing with your team to interactively review your results.

Deliverables

The Executive Report is a presentation that provides a custom analysis of your total supply chain performance. It comprises two major parts:

• Detailed charts illustrating your company’s performance against a comparable peer group for each operational metric against the best-in-peer and peer median, and for each enabler metric against peer high and peer median
• An executive summary that highlights major strengths and challenges, interdependencies between metrics, and actionable, prioritized recommendations for improvement, with dashboard graphics that aggregate the detailed results up to an executive view.

Clients also receive unlimited interaction with benchmarking analysts, including the following:

• Guidance through the benchmark process
• Data collection support to ensure data integrity
• Interpretation of benchmark results
• Assessment of overall performance

The benchmark concludes with the results briefing:

• Interactive briefing with benchmark and industry experts
• Clear, prioritized, actionable, and objective advice
• Detailed review of analysis and findings
• Interpretation of benchmarking results

For more information on Supply Chain Benchmarking or to request a sample deliverable, contact AMR Research at info@amrresearch.com.