Integrating the supply chain as a part of traditional business processes (e.g. sales and production) was popularised during the early 1990’s. Commonly supply chain integration is categorised in four levels: baseline, functional, internal and external. The fourth level, where multiple organisations connect to make customer fulfilment more efficient, is the focus of the ‘Multimodal Information Sharing project’ (sv. Multimodal Informationsdelning) and has been explored by aligning information and/or processes quite successfully.
As the topic of supply chain integration has matured, more general lessons have been published. For example, a survey with 110 manufacturing and retail firms concluded that logistical planning was greatly improved by unbundling physical flows from information flows. The authors also found a significant correlation between sustained revenue growth and supply chain integration. It should be noted that the efforts to integrate the supply chain does not have to start from the first level and move towards the fourth (external integration level). Starting at the fourth level in supply chain integration can contribute to internal collaborative efforts as well.