The integration of Lean Manufacturing in Supply Chain: principles, wastes and tools

The nature of competition has changed over the past two decades, from competition between companies to competition between supply chains. So reducing costs and optimizing the supply chain is a strategic issue for the company. Therefore, Lean is a management philosophy that allows the company to improve speed, develop quality and enhance customer value through waste elimination and continuous improvement in a system, by applying lean principles, practices and techniques. The focus on lean implementations and research had been on a single company without extension to the entire supply chain. When the lean concept is implemented across the entire supply chain, however, it is referred to as a lean supply chain. The purpose of this article is to present the Lean approach and the integration of its principles trough the supply chain, and show how this integrated approach can offer considerable performance improvement and provide a base for further contributions in this field.