Testing a performance measurement framework for agri-food supply chains

Measurement of entire supply chain performance is an important issue, because it allows for `tracking and tracing¿ of efficacy and efficiency failures and leads to more informed decisionmaking with regards to chain organization. The ultimate aim of implementing a performance measurement system is to improve the performance of the organization. If supply chains can get their performance measurement right, the data they generate will tell them where they are, how they are doing, and where they are going. The choice of appropriate supply chain performance indicators is rather complicated due to presence of multiple inputs and multiple outputs in the system. This issue becomes even more problematic in the field of food and agribusiness due to specific characteristics of agri-food supply chains. These difficulties require a shift in the focus of performance evaluation and benchmarking from characterising performance in terms of single measures to evaluating performance in a multidimensional systems perspective. Efforts as well as progress have been made in this area but supply chain performance measurement received little attention in the field of food and agribusiness. This paper presents a conceptual framework for selection performance measurement indicators for agri-food supply chain. Four main categories of performance measures are identified as necessary components in agri-food supply chain performance measurement system. Each category contains set of performance indicators. Case study research has been designed in Dutch tomato supply chain to test the proposed conceptual framework