Lean Versus Agile Supply Chain Strategy : Key Decision Criteria

Supply chain performance improvement initiatives strive to match supply and demand, thereby driving down costs simultaneously with improving customer satisfaction. This invariably requires uncertainty within the supply chain to be reduced as much as practicable so as to facilitate a more predictable upstream demand. Sometimes, however, uncertainty is impossible to remove from the supply chain due to the type of product involved. Thus, specific supply chains are faced with the situation where they have to accept uncertainty but need to develop a strategy that enables them still to match supply and demand. This research works in this direction and identifies various strategies to match demand and supply efficiently and effectively