In the wake of disruption in supply chains fueled by circumstances outside and beyond our control, the discourse then is not necessarily centered on how to build lean supply chains. Extant literature suggests that organizations that practice lean philosophy are more vulnerable to risks and disruptions and thus may take a long time to recover, and bounce back to a state of normalcy. In light of the above assertion, practitioners, academics and experts in recent times are changing the direction of supply chain discourse laying emphasis on building a more resilient organization. Thus, creating organizations that can withstand shocks both from within and outside their control is the expected 'norm'. Building resilient organization necessitates management to undertake activities such as having redundant supplies, facilities, inventories, having slack resources, among others. These practices are in contravention with lean philosophy. Although lean is a great tool that aids in eliminating waste, under the prevailing situations in today's supply chain, is it logical and or, empirically relevant to suggest that lean's potency rather seems insignificant?
I think Lean has its place. Within the Factory Walls Lean is still a necessity, maybe even more so at the moment. Volumes have been affected by parts shortages due to the pandemic. However, turnover / profit can be increased by reducing waste, utilising the Kaizen process, driving the reduction of waste in the process and improving quality and improving FTT.
But I agree in some instance it can be a hindrance. Especially if the organisation is running hand to mouth with parts i.e. Just In Time Methodology.
A good question James. Lean is indeed 'fragile' in the sense that it works close to edge but the whole idea is that allows us to identify and solve problems rapidly rather than traditional approaches that buffer and hence hide problems. In this sense it is 'strong'. I think the problem in some parts of literature is that some observers have only a partial understanding of lean and design so-called lean supply chains with far away suppliers instead of buying locally and in small quantities very frequently which gives better control over resiliency issues and shortages caused for instance by deep sea shipping container constraints.
should that mean that resilience implies waste and non-performance. From my point of view, resilience as well as lean are both means for improving performance. The idea concerns the way the lean philosophy is implemented, knoinf that local optimisations don't go within overall performance.
Many organizations, particularly in developing countries opt to implement lean without understanding it properly. They do not realize that lean is not a codebook rather it is a philosophy. If they don't hold the philosophy, they would not be able to succeed either in a normal condition or in any disruption. Thus, the application of lean and its effectiveness for ensuring supply chain resilience may be questioned.
Many firms have experienced a terrible perturbation and disruption during the last times by the impact of Covid-19 or the shortage of semiconductor’s ensure the normal flow of supply chain network, all of those: academics, experts, mangers and exacters should work to gather in order to update the actual lean's philosophy. Thus, simulation and modeling the global supply chain are very important in this application.
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