The Supply Chain Strategy Conundrum: To be Lean Or Agile or To be Lean And Agile?

There has been a tendency recently to see "lean" and "agile" as two distinct models of business operations. In this paper, the authors seek to reconcile the two paradigms and through case study examples show how they may successfully be combined. A fundamental requirement is that supply chain design be linked to corporate strategy and the needs of the market-place. 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.