Over the last decade, many healthcare organizations have adopted lean thinking to reduce wastages and to improve flow efficiency in the patient flow processes. But there is limited research done on understanding the sequence to be followed by healthcare organizations to implement lean in their different departments, and on the applicability of various lean tools in different healthcare settings. This article aims to bridge this gap, map the current state of lean in healthcare and identify future research directions. Key concepts of lean thinking are introduced, and the current body of knowledge between 2002 and 2014 is explored to answer key research questions on the application of lean in different healthcare settings. Further, this article is one of the first attempts to classify healthcare services according to the service process matrix. Results show that different healthcare services pose unique challenges to lean implementation due to their inherent characteristics of service delivery. Research opportunities exist to determine the appropriate path which a hospital should follow while implementing lean, to identify the most appropriate set of lean tools and for empirically validating the benefits of lean.

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Risk management holds a crucial role in ensuring efficiency, predictability, and coherency in supply chain operations of an enterprise. Risks are associated with every member of a supply chain network. Thus, an end-to-end risk management approach is essential to fortify the entire supply chain network. In this paper, we consider a supply chain network consisting of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, as the representative stakeholders. In particular, we take supply chain operational, and opportunism risks into account, and investigate the roles of flexibility, and social relationship, respectively, as a mitigation approach. We develop a multi-period network equilibrium model by considering the stakeholders' objectives of maximising profit and minimising risk. Further, the finite-dimensional variational inequality formulations are derived for the underlying network optimisation problem. An algorithm, with nice features for computations, is then applied to three simulated examples in order to illustrate the model and computational procedure as well as the types of interventions that can help the strategic decision-makers to explore quantitatively the associated profits and incurred risks in an entire supply chain network.

Successful new product development projects and extant research literature advocate for inclusion of inputs pertaining to the supply chain at early stages of product development to proactively identify risk averse product design concepts. To this end, we devise an analytical framework to converge upon product design concept(s) that would be associated with lesser supply chain risks, usually function of both technical and commercialization considerations. The high-level and constituent lower-level supply chain risks are represented by parent and root nodes respectively within the devised Bayesian network driven research framework. Thereafter, a quantitative measure denoted as SCRI (supply chain risk index) is evolved that yields overall composite risk numbers corresponding to respective design concepts at different risk states. Validation and comparison of the devised method with an extant study illustrates the consistency and reliability of the study. It is found that the risk propensity of a particular design concept is inversely related to the probabilistic utility of that particular concept. The case of a construction power tool of a global firm is used to demonstrate the methodology. Our research addresses an important future research pathway as argued by Hosseini et al., (2020) that extant research literature is devoid of decision-making frameworks focused on measurement and analysis the propagation of risks on complex networks.

Indian agri-food supply chain (AFSC) is highly unorganized in terms of flow of products, funds, and information, resulting in low profitability of farmers. In this paper, we have identified various internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) of AFSC to make a strategic viewpoint. Based on the identified factors, questionnaire are prepared and circulated among experts from academics and industries to prioritize the identified factors. Further, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and Fuzzy-AHP methods are used to rank the identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats factors followed by comparative analysis. The results reveal that agriculture sectors significant contribute in national growth and it is a highest ranked strength. Small farm holding farmers is a major weakness of Indian agriculture system. These factors need to be addressed in designing of Indian AFSC, which has capability to stimulate the growth of overall agriculture sector as well as the nation.