Journal of Supply Chain Management Systems

Abstract

Nowadays, the supply chain (SC) represents the way to adapt business organizations to unpredictably changing scenarios. No organization can control nor manage the drivers that lead to such changes: moreover, they need to follow them.

The purpose of this paper is to provide two broad conceptual contributions. On the one hand, its purpose is to clarify the most commonly used terms and definitions. On the other hand, it tries to highlight the actual differences between drivers and effects of each SC-feature.

In particular, this paper aims to present a robust literature review and a chart that summarizes the key points at stake. The goal here is to provide a pragmatic way of avoiding any misunderstanding connected when dealing with such concepts. This paper starts by defining two primary research questions: (1) “How do adaptability, flexibility, agility, lean, and leagility differ in the SC context?”; and (2) “Considering the SC main features, which are the differences among the various drivers that push companies to implement them in order to get the desired effects?”. Based on a detailed analysis of the current literature review, a set of final definitions of lean, agile, leagile, flexible, and adaptable SC is then provided. This research also offers a broad view of how different features relate to distinct effects when they are implemented into business strategies.

However, this literature review does not focus on a specific SC sector. The implementation of SC features in different industries slightly differs from one another. Moreover, implementation issues of SC features vary from country to country and depend on the work culture of the organization and the geographic location within the country. Hence, the results of this study would benefit from the differentiation between industries and geographical areas.

Keywords

Full Text

References