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The increase in the supply chain complexity demands new professionals who are able to deal with the new challenges faced nowadays. The purpose of this work is to propose an international university–industry collaboration model to develop supply chain management competences in students as a tool for the training of future professionals.

This study proposes an international collaboration model to develop supply chain competences. The model consists of three main phases from the genesis of the collaboration to the assessment of the competence development. This study validates the model collaborating with one of the largest retailer companies in Mexico.

Results identify collaboration good practices and point at possible improvements for the next model iteration. This study identifies four key supply chain competences as part of this model. Three didactic approaches (i.e. guidance methods) and two student’s involvement schemes were tested. The results show that professors acting as an advisor (i.e. acting as a guider without telling student directly what to do or how to do it) plus a voluntary student’s involvement in the project promote better competence development.

The first contribution of this research is the definition of an international collaboration model that promotes competence-based education. Also, this study documents good practices for this type of partnership. The second one refers to a large-scale model validation (i.e. 14-week experiment in nine different regions of Mexico involving a retail company, 20 professor-researchers and more than 100 students). The third contribution includes the assessment of different levels of competences development using diverse students’ participation schemes and professor’s guidance methods.

This research aims to develop a supply chain maturity model so that Mexican firms can evaluate their current supply chain operations and develop an improvement road‐map.

The Delphi Method was used with 80 experts in Mexico. The Delphi Method gathers multiple perspectives on supply chain operations and delineates a path to reach a group consensus. The results lead to the specification of a supply chain maturity model S(CM)². S(CM)² is validated through experimentation and a pilot test to verify the ability of the model to help managers assess the supply chain processes of a firm by identifying their maturity level in each model viewpoint. A pilot test with a Mexican firm demonstrates the practical implementation of the model.

The research results in a meta‐model, called the supply chain maturity model S(CM)², that describes supply chain maturity at five levels across multiple competency areas, and provides guidance to specify an improvement plan.

The meta‐model was developed in Mexico and may not apply to the operations of supply chains in other countries. Additionally, the large scope of the meta‐model calls for further testing and refinement.

The research provides a means for firms to evaluate their supply chain operations and develop improvement plans.

The paper contributes by integrating the ideas of reference frameworks, capability maturity models, and improvement processes and demonstrates how a holistic meta‐model can be developed to evaluate supply chain operations.