Lean and Green Supply Chain for the Product-Services System (PSS): The Literature Review and A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

In recent years, the distinction between manufacturing and services has been blurring. They are often combined together to provide customers a total offering for better economic performance. At same time, manufacturers are facing rising pressures from government, society and end users to reduce the impacts of their products and services on environmental sustainability throughout the supply chain. As a result, Product-Services System (PSS) was developed to drive for both business excellence and environmental sustainability. The application of Lean and Green thinking in supply chain management has also shown the advantage of addressing the two issues. However, there is a lack of systematic research on how Lean and Green thinking could support the development of PSS supply chain, esp. in the fields of supplier collaboration and relationship development across the product life cycle. For instance, how can Lean and Green help reshaping the supplier structure and network? Which Lean and Green tools can promote the supplier relationship? From literature review, this paper summarizes the state-of-art researches on PSS, Lean/Green supply chain management and the connections between them. Then a conceptual framework of Lean and Green supply chain for PSS is constructed to guide the case studies in next steps.