"Don't Lean Too Far - Distinguishing Between the Lean and Agile Manufacturing Paradigms"

The paper shows how the lean and agile paradigms may be selected according to marketplace requirements. These are distinctly different, since in the first case the market winner is cost, whereas in the second case the market winner is availability. Agile supply chains are required to be market sensitive and hence nimble. This means that the definition of waste is different from that appropriate to lean supply. The proper location of decoupling points for material flow and information flow enable a hybrid supply chain to be engineered. This encourages lean (efficient) supply upstream and agile (effective) supply downstream, thus bringing together the best of both paradigms. The paper concludes by proposing a cyclic migratory model which describes the PC supply chain attributes during its evolution from traditional to its present customised ‘leagile’ operation.

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