Mapping the supply chain: Why, what and how?

There is now widespread appreciation of the critical role played by supply chains in the global economy. Supply chains are dominant concerns for many organisations, governments, policy makers, and consumers. A primary requirement in addressing many contemporary supply chain challenges is the need to ‘map’ a supply system. With notable exceptions, much of the supply chain management literature has shied away from providing guidance on the mapping process. In this paper, we stress the reasons for the increased emphasis on mapping. We review the academic literature, highlighting the diversity of mapping exercises conducted by researchers and the lack of clarity about the different types of maps developed. Supply chain mapping has been used as an umbrella term for studies at very different aggregation levels. We define the fundamental elements needed to create a supply chain map and develop a formal hierarchy of supply systems for mapping at different levels of analysis. The hierarchy provides a structured way to consider the diversity of mapping exercises in the literature and to define the unit of analysis for a mapping study. We illustrate the hierarchy with a range of examples from the textile and apparel industry. We identify the primary and secondary data sources that can underpin mapping studies, highlighting the significant challenges in using them. We discuss the emerging commercial solutions to capture, map, and analyse supply systems for different purposes. In an increasingly data rich world, there are many opportunities to develop the supply chain mapping process further. •Highlights the pressing contemporary need to map globally dispersed supply chains.•Presents a hierarchy of supply systems to enable effective mapping studies.•Identifies primary and secondary data sources to create supply chain maps.•Discusses the many challenges in mapping supply chains and emerging solutions.•Illustrates the mapping approach for the global textile and apparel industry.