Is leagile still relevant? A review and research opportunities

Abstract

Leagile is an approach to managing production and supply chain excellence that is a hybrid of conventional Lean and Agile thinking and methods. This paper reviews the extant literature relating to Leagile and in the process identifies important opportunities for advancing research. Although several review works exist for lean operations (e.g. [Jasti, N. V. K., & Kodali, R. (2015). Lean production: Literature review and trends. International Journal of Production Research, 53(3), 867–885]), this paper seeks to be the first to specifically review Leagile research. Following review of recent, literature reviews [Ho, W., Zheng, T., Yildiz, H., & Talluri, S. (2015). Supply chain risk management: A literature review. International Journal of Production Research, 53(16), 5031–5069; Jasti, N. V. K., & Kodali, R. (2015). Lean production: Literature review and trends. International Journal of Production Research, 53(3), 867–885], a seven-step process was developed to undertake this research. A total of 225 articles were reviewed, resulting in 53 articles where Leagile was a central theme. Findings include and reveal that Leagile is recognised as important for business excellence [Akyuz, G. K. (2015). Quality excellence in complex supply networks: EFQM excellence model reconsidered. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 26(11–12), 1282–1297] but under-investigated; papers in high quality publications have declined to date; 73% of research articles used qualitative research methods. Research that involves practical studies comparing the paradigms lean, agile and leagile, tends to better understand the difficulties and better implementation practices of the theme. The service, SME and health sectors are particularly fitting for further work given their competitive, progressive and relatively unexplored nature.