Trade-offs among lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms in supply chain management: A case study approach

Abstract

Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green (LARG) management paradigms may help companies and supply chains to become more competitive and sustainable. However, the deployment of those management paradigms could lead to opposite results. This paper intends to identify and the necessary understanding of those paradigms trade-offs. An exploratory case study approach is used to identify the trade-offs in the automotive supply chain context. The case study findings show that not all the companies belonging to the same supply chain need to have a higher implementation level for all LARG practices. Some companies can be more Resilient than others, and the same happens with the Lean paradigm: not all companies in supply chain need to be totally Lean. Because of the differences in the LARG practices implementation level among supply chain echelons, two separate sequences of capabilities were found. For the automaker "quality" should be developed first, then "flexibility", "environmental protection" in addition to "cost", and finally "delivery". In the first-tier supplier echelon "quality" should be developed first, subsequently " flexibility", "delivery", and ultimately "cost" and "environmental protection". © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.