On leanness, agility and leagile supply chains

Abstract

In 1999 a paper by Naylor, Naim and Berry on ‘leagility’ was published in international journal of production economics. The paper has attracted over 100 independent citations from over 60 journals of international standing. This paper explores the testing, exploitation and extension of the original work. Via a systematic literature review the notable findings are that the 1999 paper has been exploited in terms of its classification of supply chains into lean, agile and ‘leagile’; those terms have been tested via survey and case based empirical research; has been extended beyond the original stock decoupling point exploitation of lean and agile to encompass other forms of ‘leagility’. This paper concludes that further robust testing of ‘leagility’ and the definitions of leanness and agility are still required to encompass different market sectors and ensure triangulation of research methods.