SCOR DS · Source · process explainer
Source: buying well is a decision discipline
Source covers procuring, scheduling, receiving, and transferring products and services — and the supplier-risk decisions that determine whether the inbound side holds. Process scope, metrics, recurring decisions.
What it is. Source is where the supply in “supply chain” actually enters. In SCOR DS terms, it covers procuring, ordering, scheduling the delivery, receipt, and transfer of products and services: supplier agreements upstream of any transaction, then the operational loop of ordering, receiving, inspecting, and paying. The process holds a structural asymmetry worth naming — your suppliers’ Fulfill process is your Source process seen from the other side. Their reliability becomes your raw-material availability, their lead-time variance becomes your buffer size, and the standard lets you measure them with the same yardstick you apply to yourself.
The questions it answers. Are suppliers delivering what was promised, when it was promised — and are we measuring them with the same definitions and the same rigor we apply to our own outbound performance? Which drifts in supplier behavior are noise, and which are the start of a failure that deserves money spent against it? Where is inbound cost accumulating: price, freight, duties, expediting? How much raw-material buffer is protecting the plan, and what is that protection costing to carry?
The metrics that matter.
| Measure | SCOR DS | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect Supplier Order Fulfillment | RL.1.2 | The supplier’s reliability, held to the same standard as your own outbound |
| Supplier OTIF vs SLA | practice measure | Contract-floor compliance per supplier, with consequences attached |
| Inbound Freight and Duties | CO.3.13 | Growth here at flat volume usually means expediting is becoming routine |
| Direct Material Cost | CO.2.6 | Whether negotiated price is surviving contact with actual buying behavior |
| Inventory Days of Supply — Raw Material | AM.3.1 | How much protection you’re carrying against inbound failure, in days |
Where the decisions live. A supplier starts sliding: three deteriorating periods, lead-time variance widening. The recurring decision is a threshold call — how much drift is tolerable before splitting an award, qualifying an alternate, or expediting a purchase order, and is the premium worth the exposure it removes? The supplier-OTIF caselet prices one such call against a line stoppage. The write-back matters as much as the analysis: the expedite flag on the PO, the split award, and the corrective-action case all land in the systems that run procurement, so the decision exists where buyers work.
SCOR is ASCM’s framework; coded metrics reference the SCOR DS quick reference. Uncoded measures are common practice measures.