Lean supply chain practices: an exploratory study on their relationship

• Pages: 1049-1076
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-06-2017-0141
• Date: 08 June 2018
• Published date: 08 June 2018
• Author: Guilherme Tortorella,Ricardo Giglio,Diego Castro Fettermmann,Diego Tlapa
• Subject Matter: Logistics,Management science & operations

Lean supply chain practices:

an exploratory study on

their relationship

Guilherme Tortorella and Ricardo Giglio

Department of Production and Systems Engineering,

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil

Diego Castro Fettermmann

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering,

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil, and

Diego Tlapa

Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Design,

Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, Ensenada, Mexico

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships among the

implementation of LSC practices. Particularly, the authors examine the adoption level of 27 LSC practices,

which were identified in a literature review, within 113 manufacturing companies from different sectors

located in Southern Brazil.

Design/methodology/approach –Data collected were analyzed by means of multivariate techniques

(partial correlation analysis) and two control variables were used: level of onshore suppliers and company’s

experience on lean manufacturing implementation.

Findings –The resultsshowed that the relationshipamong practices may not alwaysbe synergic, since there

are pairs of practices that, when concurrentlyimplemented they tend to conflict, hinderingtheir benefits.

Originality/value –The use of partial correlations between pairs of LSC practices provides means to

better understand specific associations, disregarding the implementation effect of the whole set of practices.

The research also provides managers and practitioners arguments to better comprehend how practices

interact with each other under specific contexts.

Keywords Survey, Supply chain management, South America, Lean supply chain, Partial correlation analysis

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Supply chain management (SCM) comprises the flow of goods from supplier through

manufacturing and distribution chains until the end user (Power, 2005). The focus of SCM

practices must shift from functional and independent to general and integrative initiatives

(Frazzon et al., 2015; Theagarajan and Manohar, 2015). Due to an increasing competitive

pressure for shorter lead times, lower costs and better quality, the principles of lean

manufacturing (LM) have been incorporated into the supply chain integrative approaches

(Cudney and Elrod, 2010). In a general approach, LM practices and principles aim at

reducing waste and variability in the processes, adding more value to customers and

providing operational performance improvement (Shah and Ward, 2003). Therefore, a lean

supply chain (LSC) aims to ensure that value is transferred downstream in the most efficient

way. Moreover, it requires a different business model, in which improved profits arise from

the cooperation rather than bargaining or imposing power over supply chain partners

(Alves Filho et al., 2004; Naim and Gosling, 2011; Chiromo et al., 2015). Vitasek et al. (2005)

defined LSC as a set of organizations directly linked by upstream and downstream flows of

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 29 No. 3, 2018

pp. 1049-1076

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-06-2017-0141

Received 1 June 2017

Revised 31 August 2017

13 November 2017

Accepted 1 January 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-4093.htm

This paper forms part of the regular section.

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Lean supply

chain practices

products, services, information and funds that collaboratively work to reduce cost and

waste by efficiently pulling what is needed to meet the needs of individual customers.

In line with this integrated SCM vision, the entire flow from raw materials to final consumer

is considered as an integrated whole, in which the interfaces between companies are seen as a

result of economic arrangements of assets ruled by several contextual factors, such as labor

skills, geographical location of raw materials and configurations of technology (Wu, 2002;

Goldsby et al., 2006; Boonsthonsatit and Jungthawan, 2015). However, the adaptation of lean

principles from manufacturing to SCM activities is not a simple process (Hines et al., 2004) due to

several reasons, such as: LM waste is easier to be identified and quantified; and manufacturing

processes can be controlled through top management, while SCM requires attention for the

entire chain, from suppliers to customers (Anand and Kodali, 2008; Soni and Kodali, 2012).

Nevertheless, several researchers (e.g. Lewis, 2006; Cagliano et al., 2006; Blanchard, 2010) have

implementedleanprinciplesinSCMandreportedimprovedorganizationaloutputs.

However, the integration of lean practices into SCM still has much to evolve in order to

better comprehend the adaptation of lean approach (Shamah, 2013; Rezende et al., 2016).

In this sense, many organizations have struggled to implement LSC practices due to lack of

awareness and improper implementation approach. Further, several studies have focused

only on individual aspects of LSC and very few researchers have approached both upstream

and downstream activities of the organization (Anand and Kodali, 2008; Jasti and

Kodali, 2015; Riet et al., 2015). Moreover, despite the fact that the stable and unidirectional

theory and concepts of LSC are not fully developed yet (Anand and Kodali, 2008), most of

the studies have been restricted to a particular sector instead of a generalization of the LSC

framework (Perez et al., 2010; Petra and Marek, 2015). Such research limitation neglects

potential synergies among LSC practices, approaching a few LSC practices in an isolated

manner or through a narrow perspective of their application. Based on the aforementioned

arguments, one research question can be raised:

RQ1. How do LSC practices relate to each other in a lean implementation process?

Thus, the aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships among

the implementation of LSC practices. Particularly, we examine the adoption level of 27 LSC

practices, which were identified in a literature review, within 113 manufacturing companies

from different sectors located in Southern Brazil. Data collected were analyzed by means of

multivariate techniques and two control variables were used: level of onshore suppliers and

company’s experience on LM implementation. Our results show how different LSC practices

relate to each other as the lean implementation evolves according to eachcontrol variable. In

theoretical terms, our study is characterized as exploratory providing means to better

understand the synergies or divergences between pairs of LSC practices. Literature evidence

extensively indicates that the adoption of these LSC practices contributes to supply chain

performance improvement, assuming that higher adoption levels would entail enhanced

results. In turn, negative relationships between practices may reduce the potential benefits

implied by them. Further, the understanding of these relationships within an emerging

economy context,such as Brazil, also contributesto the body of knowledge. According to Jasti

and Kodali (2014),87 percent of the studies about lean reported implementationin companies

from developed countries, mostly from the USA, Japan and Europe. Therefore, the extant

knowledge about lean implementation from emerging markets is still superficial and

substantially lower than from developed countries (Panizzolo et al., 2012). Indeed, previous

studies have shown that there are differences when comparing the lean implementation in

developed countries and in emerging countries. Consequently, difficulties around lean

implementation in companies and their supply chain located in emerging markets may be

potentiateddue to the new market orientation andthe insecurity in the organizationalclimate

inherent to such change (Saurin and Ferreira, 2009; Tortorella et al., 2017).

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