Structural elements of coordination mechanisms in collaborative planning processes and their assessment through maturity models: Application to a ceramic tile company

Abstract

Maturity is defined as a measure to evaluate the capabilities of an organization in regards to a certain discipline. The Collaborative Planning Process is a very complex process and Coordination mechanisms are especially relevant in this field to align the plans of the supply chain members. The objective of this paper is to develop a maturity model and a methodology to perform assessment for the Structural Elements of Coordination Mechanisms in the Collaborative Planning Process. Structural elements are specified in order to characterize coordination mechanisms in a collaborative planning context and they have been defined as key areas to be assessed by the maturity model. The identified structural elements are: number of decision-makers, collaboration level, interdependence relationships nature, interdepen-dence relationships type, number of coordination mechanisms, information exchanged, information processing, decision sequence characteristics and stopping criteria. Structural elements are assessed using the scheme of five levels: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimized. This proposal has been applied to a ceramic tile company and the results are also reported.