A comparison between lean and visibility approach in supply chain planning

Nowadays, competition increases more and more in the market and it is moved from firm vs firm to supply chain vs supply chain. Therefore, supply chains (SC) are always looking to improve their efficiency to excel in the market. In order to do that, SC managers pay much attention to the coordination among SC members. SC planning allows the coordination among the SC players. In the literature, many SC planning approaches have been developed and analyzed, but up to now, the debate on which is the best approach is an open issue. On the other hand, lean approach is becoming more and more popular among SC managers. Both practitioners and academics have recognized the importance of Lean approach for single firm efficiency. This paper aim at evaluating the impact of Lean approach implementation in supply chain planning tasks. It provides an in-depth analysis of Lean SC planning policy impact on SC performances and compare it with traditional EOQ and Visibility policies. The influence of SC planning policies and of external parameters is assessed in a DES simulation study. The simulation model tests a multi-product three-echelon supply chain. Lean "pull" principle is developed through Kanban system implementation and Lean "create the flow" principle is developed through setup time and batch size reductions. The simulation study analyses inventory level, transportation performance and service level performances. According to simulation outputs a total SC logistic costs have been evaluated for each scenario. The results provide new insights suggesting that Lean supply chain planning policy gives competitive advantages. The results have important consequences for implementation of Lean concepts in practice in SC planning tasks

Organizational culture and lean practices: analysis through a real case study

Nowadays, lean researchers are focused on the role of organizational culture and contingencies factors in the success and sustainability of lean management. This research aims at contributing to the academia debate by analysing through a deep case study whether organizational culture based on lean management can enable companies in overcoming differences related to the national culture. Moreover, the study wants to provide evidences that companies can leverage on lean practice in order to spread organizational culture among different country-based plants

Order review and release in make-to-order flow shops:analysis and design of new methods

Increased customization has strengthened the importance of make-to-order companies. The advent of lean management and the introduction of smart and flexible technologies has enabled many of these companies to create flow shop routings. Order review and release (ORR) research, which originally focused on job shops, has started paying attention to flow shops. However, the results have not provided clarity on the best ORR method for flow shops. This study aims at developing such a method by applying a modular design approach. It identifies the relevant elements of ORR methods for flow shops, combines them into new methods and evaluates them in a simulation study. The simulation results demonstrate that performance in pure flow shops can be strongly improved by applying the right combination of workload measures, load balancing, and order dispatching. Specifically, the results show that (1) classical workload measures are still as effective as novel measures that have been suggested for flow shops, (2) balancing workloads explicitly through optimization at the order release stage strongly improves performance, and (3) shortest processing time dispatching is highly effective in flow shops as it avoids starvation of stations. In-depth analyses have been executed to unravel the reasons of performance improvements. As such, the article provides clarity on the improvement potential that is available for ORR in flow shops, while the new modular methods provide a first step in exploiting this potential

Pandemic's effect on the relationship between lean implementation and service performance

PurposeThis paper aims at examining the impact that COVID-19 pandemic and its related work implications have on the relationship between lean implementation and service performance.Design/methodology/approachThe author surveyed service organizations that have been implementing lean for at least two years and remotely maintained their activities during the COVID-19 outbreak. Multivariate data techniques were applied to analyze the dataset. This study was grounded on sociotechnical systems theory.FindingsThe findings indicate that organizations that have been implementing lean services more extensively are also more likely to benefit from the effects that the COVID-19 had on work environments, especially in the case of home office. Nevertheless, social distancing does not appear to mediate the effects of lean services on both quality and delivery performances.Originality/valueSince the pandemic is a recent phenomenon with unprecedented effects, this research is an initial effort to determine the effect the pandemic has on lean implementation and services' performance, providing both theoretical and practical contributions to the field.</jats:sec

Lean implementaion in service companies

Service companies have been implementing Lean only in recent years. In this research three third party logistic companies and seven companies of the financial sector have been thoroughly interviewed and showed a few interesting aspects on the way they implemented Lean. They are implementing Lean in high volume low variety processes and focus on back office activities, which are most similar to manufacturing. Focus on flow, releasing real pull systems and attention to pacing the flow are the aspects that have been less developed and considered not applicable –or not worth applying- in service

Approccio Lean: novità manageriale, o ennesima moda?

L'articolo affronta una analisi critica dell'approccio Lean identificando gli elementi distintivi rispetto a altri approcci managerial