There has been a decades-old challenge in the supply chain industry that organizations could have either an agile supply chain or a lean supply chain, but they couldn’t have both at the same time. The ...

There’s been a long-held concept that a supply chain could be agile or lean, but not both. In last month’s article, we explored how with the right digital transformation, there is no reason why a ...

Every business is unique. For most, simply adopting a single, prescribed approach is a risky move. In the case of Six Sigma, it can be especially tempting to, seeing the success of major companies ...

The supply chain industry is at a crossroads. Once upon a time, when most products and components were in abundance, a lean supply chain was a miracle of efficiency. Lean principles were used in every ...

Lean and just-in-time (JIT) strategies are still vital to supply chains. Lean management practices JIT strategies may have taken a beating in recent years, but only because companies relied too ...

The concept of “Lean,” which is essentially a team-based approach to continuous improvement focused on eliminating non-value added activities or “waste” from the viewpoint of the customer, has been ...

A lean supply chain defines how a well-designed supply chain should operate, delivering products quickly to the end customer, with minimum waste. A lean supply chain is a great enabler for any ...

Editor’s Note: Every year, 40 or so students in the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics' (MIT CTL) Master of Supply Chain Management (SCM) program complete one-year thesis research projects. The ...