The supply chain strategy conundrum: To be lean or agile or to be lean and agile

This paper reports on research conducted by the authors, and others, on how appropriate supply chain strategies can be developed which are contingent upon market characteristics and which seek to achieve simultaneously higher levels of customer responsiveness yet at less total cost to the supply chain as a whole. Lean and agile principles are then juxtaposed according to the requisite business strategy via a time-space matrix. This determines whether the lean-agile principles are separated by time, by space or by both space and time. A number of case studies are presented highlighting ways in which hybrid lean/agile supply chains can be created