Benchmarking of logistical operations based on a causal model

In the domain of supply chain management or logistics, there exists a large gap between the needs of companies and the wealth of available best practices. To remedy this situation, we have built a causal model. This causal model relates the use of best practices to the resulting performances, based on this model, a logistic audit has been developed to provide a systematic review of logistic performance. It allows companies to obtain an idea about their rate of use of best practices, and their effectiveness based on the key metrics. Because the best practice audit uses a scoring system, it is possible to compare different companies and thus construct a benchmarking database. As in any benchmarking scheme, any gaps give important indications where to improve. The novel idea is the causal model, which indicates which best practices are most likely to improve the specific lagging metrics.