The term 'supply chain process' is used regularly to refer to a service performance to which multiple organizations contribute. This emphasizes the end-to-end perspective of managing that performance. Delivering the intended performance, the requested service, then requires the cooperation of multiple organizations. Using the term supply chain process creates the illusion that we are dealing with processes that are different from the processes of a single organization. This is a misconception. Supply chain processes are exactly the same processes. The procedures in supply chains may differ, the work instructions in supply chains may differ, but not the processes.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a 'supply chain process'. Or in other words, supply chain processes are just the same processes we've always had.
Internal chains
In essence, this situation is in no way different from other situations in which a service provider manages services: there are always multiple actors contributing to a common performance in a supply chain. This is true even if only internal teams are involved. The supply chain then corresponds to the cross-team process in which these contributions are made. In it, each team acts as a solution team contributing to an action, activity, or step in that joint process. That is the essence of process-based work. The handling of that process, in an end-to-end perspective, then involves multiple teams in the service provider's organization, as solution teams.
External chains
Now let's consider this from the perspective in which multiple organizations are involved in executing the end-to-end process for the requested performance. Here, the contributing organizations again act as the solution teams of the virtual, integrated service provider - which now consists of a group of collaborating organizations. Each organization in turn contributes to an action, activity, or step in that collaborative process, as a solution team. The only difference is that those solution teams are now not part of one formal organization, but they cooperate in a virtual organization, a 'supply chain organization': the service provider of the requested service.
The process has not changed
It is still exactly the same service from exactly the same requestor, and it still requires exactly the same actions. However, the service is now no longer provided by one organization, but by multiple organizations cooperating as solution teams to provide that one service. This situation is the result of labor specialization, a phenomenon associated with outsourcing. Behind the service provider's front door, multiple organizations start wcooperating in a supply chain to deliver a requested service, i.e., as the service provider's solution teams. However, those solution teams still do exactly the same thing as if all the tasks had been performed by internal solution teams. Thus, the process has not changed: it is only the performers that are different. A change is still a change, and the change process is still the change process - regardless of who performs the actions in that process.
Procedures and work instructions
Therefore, 'supply chain processes' are exactly the same as the processes of a single organization. However, when designing the procedure, you now enter external solution teams instead of internal solution teams. When defining the work instruction, you again simply fill in the instruction for performing the task at hand. The responsibility for that execution now lies with the solution team that performs the task, and that solution team - as an independent organization - has the authority to determine that instruction itself, as long as the requested performance in the chain - the process - is delivered.
Coordination
Internal supply chains are coordinated by internal coordinators: employees of the service provider charged with coordination tasks. In accordance with USM, these can be process coordinators or team coordinators. Team coordinators are limited to the scope of their team. Only process coordinators are able to oversee and coordinate the process - the supply chain.
If there is an external chain, involving multiple organizations, we often see a 'supply chain coordinator' or 'supply chain planner', possibly in combination with a 'supply chain manager'. This 'supply chain coordinator' or 'supply chain planner' is then entirely comparable to the USM process coordinator, and the 'supply chain manager' is entirely comparable to the USM process manager.
So what processes are there, in the chain?
As USM demonstrates, each service organization has only 5 processes. Those processes describe the logical steps for handling an interaction of the customer with the service provider, that is, for delivering a performance. Take government as an example. From the perspective of the customer (the citizen), there is only one provider of the service (the government). That service provider, under the influence of ubiquitous specialization, has to deal with a large number of solution teams, which in this case are individual organizations. The delivery of the requested service can be seen from the perspective of the customer, as well as from the perspective of the virtual supplier ('the government'), as one process, in one chain of cooperating solution teams. However, each individual solution team sees only its own contribution to that chain, that is, only its own contribution to that process for the delivery of the service.
The processes of each individual organization in both the internal and external chain are defined in USM's universal process model.
