Quantifying the degree of leanness and agility at any point within a supply chain

Purpose – Not many researchers have attempted to numerically quantify a supply chain’s degree of leanness or agility. Although focusing predominantly on food, the purpose of this paper is to propose a simple and universal methodology to quantify the degrees of leanness and agility at any point within any supply chain. Design/methodology/approach – Daily processing capacities of stochastic model runs and real supply chain data were projected onto a standardized Euclidean surface. Indexes that calculate, amongst others, the agility, leanness, baseline production and ceiling conditions were derived. Findings – The indexes were often well correlated across the various supply chains. Leanness correlates negatively with agility, as can be expected, however, these attributes do not stand opposed to each other. Most supply chains seem to exhibit both lean and agile attributes simultaneously. Sugar, various types of tomatoes, avocado and onion supply chains are discussed and compared. Although a large amount of da...