Impact of lean and agile strategies on supply chain risk management

Abstract

In this competitive era when there are unforeseeable changes and high levels of environmental instability in the market, supply chains are more focused on implementing dynamic strategies to get a rapid response with minimal cost. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual framework to analyse driving factors for the leagile strategy and further to provides empirical evidences of effectiveness of lean and agile supply chain strategies on risk management in term of creating a robust and resilient supply chain. Data were collected from 140 supply chain professionals working in the manufacturing industry for hypotheses testing via structural equation modelling. The findings of this study reveal that market orientation as an external force has a greater impact on driving the agile strategy as compared to lean, while the Quality management system as an internal force is highly related to developing lean supply chain strategies. Furthermore, lean and agile strategies also have a significant impact on the robust supply chain and the resilient supply chain. The suggested model would help organisations to understand and create an ideal supply chain by implementing the right combination of both supply chain strategies which in turn helps to create a robust and resilient supply chain.