Analysis of enablers for the implementation of leagile supply chain management using an integrated fuzzy QFD approach

Global competition and market uncertainty has forced organizations to become more responsive and efficient which thereby drives interest in the concept of supply chain leanness and agility. The leagile supply chain management paradigm includes lean and agile principles and has attained greater importance in the current scenario. The objective of this work is to identify the most appropriate leagile enablers for implementation by companies based on the characteristics of the related market by linking competitive bases, leagile attributes and leagile enablers. In this paper, a quality function deployment (QFD) approach integrated with analytical hierarchy process and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution is proposed to enhance the leagility of the supply chain. Fuzzy logic is used to deal with linguistic judgments expressing relationships and the correlations required by QFD. The presentation of a case study from the Indian food processing industry illustrates the proposed methodology. This approach will help the management to exploit the most influential enablers in achieving the desired degree of leagility.