Enhancing Lean Supply Chain Maturity with Business Process Management

In today’s global market the main focus of competition is not only between different companies but also between supply chains. Technological changes and organizational improvements are important for effective supply chain management (SCM), however, the main cause of SCM improvements is not the implementation of an information system (IS) itself, but rather a change and an integration of business processes. The paper summarizes the most important concepts of SCM and specifically concentrates on the importance of business process management (BPM) in supply chains, because full advantages can be realized when business processes in the supply chain are well defined, integrated and managed. The main purpose of this paper is to show that successful SCM calls for the maturity of supply chain processes in all involved companies and at the supply chain level, which can be realized by using effective BPM methods. A necessary condition for growing of SCM in terms of supply chain process maturity levels is an inter-organizational information system development and process renovation. Yet, BPM should not be considered as a one-time project of IS implementation and process change, but as a permanent process performance measurement, analysis and continuous improvement of the supply chain processes. The concepts are illustrated with a case study of fuel supply process.