Digitalizing supply chains potential benefits and impact on lean operations

Abstract

Purpose New technological trends continue to emerge, and businesses adopt them in different capacity in a pursuit of improving current ways of doing things and to gain competitive advantages over rivals. One of the key business functions that is impacted by the implementation of different disruptive technologies is the supply chain management. As a result, there is a continuous need to identify where digitalizing supply chains may provide businesses with benefits to capitalize such gains. This study aims to examine potential impacts of digitalizing supply chains on five selected lean operations practices through the identification of key areas and benefits under each of these practices. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 74 participants mainly from the academic community and who were university scholars through the use of an online survey. The used online survey consists of six main parts in total, but three were included in this paper and these were designed to gather data about participants’ general information, level of influence of seven technological trends on supply chain performance and management and potential impact of digitalizing supply chains on five lean operations practices. Findings The authors were able to confirm the significant impact of digitalizing supply chains on the five examined lean operations practices. Most of the examined potential impacts were found to improve certain areas that directly improve the practices of the explored five lean operations practices as well as the overall supply chain and business performance. They were also able to determine the level of influence of the seven examined enabling technologies on supply chain performance and management. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind. Although some literature explored different aspects related to the concept of Industry 4.0 and digitalizing supply chains, no study has specifically explored potential impacts of digitalizing supply chains on lean operations. The results from this study can be beneficial to academic scholars interested in the researched themes, business professionals specializing in supply chain management and lean operations, organizations within different industrial sectors particularly manufacturing where lean thinking is adopted and any other party interested in understanding more about the impact of digitalizing supply chain on lean operations and on an overall business performance.

Sustainable supply chain management towards disruption and organizational ambidexterity: A data driven analysis

“… I6 Lean Lean is defined as a set of practices focused on waste reduction and elimination of non-value-added activities, has been historically known and appreciated for its contribution to the firms' performance De giovanni & Vinzi, 2020; Qamar et al (2019) ; De Sanctis et al (2018) ; Lotfi & Saghiri (2018) ; Balaman (2016) . Birkie (2016) ; Brown et al (2015) ; Zuting et al (2014) ; Rashad & Nedelko (2020) ; Haddud & Khare (2020) ; Ivanov (2020) ; Divsalar et al (2020) ; Roy & Roy (2019) ; van Blokland et al (2019) . I7 Social responsibility Social sustainability is one of the pillars of the TBL, addresses three points: well-being of human beings, society, and safety of consumers.…”

Sustainability in the Aerospace, Naval, and Automotive Supply Chain 4.0: Descriptive Review

“…Engineers, to order environments, develop Lean methodologies to accelerate delivery time among other techniques. Lean practices such as Just In Time (JIT) and Visual Management show how certain areas improve the potential impacts of business performance as well as the overall Supply Chain [ 11 ]. In addition to Lean, Green is another paradigm that focuses on the requirements that I4.0 makes, from product and process design, production planning and control, and communication with suppliers.…”

Stories Told by Publications about the Relationship between Industry 4.0 and Lean: Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Lean aims to have a streamlined process flow where a systematic and visual approach is used to reduce waste [3] and increase flow via extensive employee involvement and continuous improvement, always identifying value from the customer's perspective [10,34,36]. Therefore, the basis of this philosophy places the human being as an import issue in all its decisions [27,29,37], although, nowadays, companies tend to forget this facet, focusing just on waste reduction [1,37].…”

“…In visual management 4.0, the automated acquisition of data (using IoT) saves time for managers and employees since boards can be automatically updated with information (with pre-processed data) [45]. Smart visualization abilities emerge from this combination, and entire processes and activities can be visualized across the supply chain, allowing a better risk management, predicting future incidents [36]. This is possible to use for not just IoT, but also the cloud which makes information available to all the right people.…”

“…CPS-based devices will be able to provide information about cycle times to operators using it for that augmented reality (AR), which will support the performance of JIT tasks [1]. Therefore, JIT can be of benefit alongside I4.0 in a way that provides visualization of the entire supply chain, improved demand forecast and accuracy, responsiveness to changes, and superior inventory management and control [36].…”