The lean and resilient management of the supply chain and its impact on performance

Abstract

The relationship between lean management and resilience in the supply chain, whether negative or positive, is still not clear from the existing literature. This paper aims to investigate the relationship and links between lean and resilient supply chain (SC) practices and their impact on SC performance. To achieve this objective, the aerospace manufacturing sector (AMS) is chosen as the study sector because of the importance of both paradigms. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approach is used in order to identify linkages among various lean and resilience practices and SC performance metrics through a single systemic framework. ISM is an interactive learning process based on graph theory where experts' knowledge is extracted and converted into a powerful well-structured model. For that purpose, a heterogeneous panel of experts in the AMS was formed, providing a complete view of all SC levels in the sector. The final ISM model revealed that lean SC practices act as drivers for resilient SC practices, since implementing the former in isolation could lead to a more vulnerable SC. The findings also show that lean SC practices lead to a higher performance improvement than resilient SC practices. This is due to the fact that resilient SC practices do not exert influence over all SC performance metrics as it occurs with lean SC practices. In addition, several managerial implications regarding the most convenient practices in terms of the company's objectives are drawn from this study.