Operational resilience and lean: in search of synergies and trade-offs

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate synergy/trade-off relationship between lean and operational resilience paradigms upon disruption. Lean and resilience are operationalised with practice bundles and core functions, respectively. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses the Bayesian inference approach to analyse systematically encoded data from firms that faced disruptions in their supply chain. The data were collected from publicly available sources, and encoded using predefined constructs prior to analysis. Findings – Findings show that the synergetic relations between operational resilience and lean in mitigating performance losses outweigh the trade-off. Just-in-time/flow and total productive maintenance lean practices appear to be major sources for the trade-off; there is limited-synergy leveraged on the anticipative (sense) capability of operational resilience. Research limitations/implications – The dependence on secondary data and small sample size are possible limitations. Future research may employ large-scale studies with the same encoding approach by combining both primary and secondary sources. Practical implications – This study implies that companies need not abandon their lean implementation in order to be resilient against unanticipated disruptive circumstances. Most lean practices can be used to leverage agility to mitigate disruptions. Originality/value – This is a first study to empirically compare synergy/trade-off between operational resilience and lean with reference to changes in operations performance upon disruption. It is also a first study to investigate sources of synergy/trade-off at lean practice bundles and resilience core functions level. This is a much more practical level compared to how previous studies have addressed the issue.

Toyota production system - one example to shipbuilding industry

“…ijmp.jor.br v. 8, n. 3, July -September 2017ISSN: 2236AGARWAL, 2015;BALL, 2015;PAKDIL;LEONARD, 2015;MUND;PIETERSE;CAMERON, 2015;CHAY, et al, 2015;HU, et al, 2015;WICKRAMASINGHE;WICKRAMASINGHE, 2016;BIRKIE, 2016;ALI;DEIF, 2016;NARAYANAMURTHY;GURUMURTHY, 2016;CHEN;SU;RO, 2017;KAMALAHMADI;PARAST, 2017;MOHAMMADDUST, et al, 2017).…”

“…Another relevant factor is the cost of unnecessary drives that are eliminated with the inclusion of a lean production flow HU, et al, 2015;BIRKIE, 2016;ALI;DEIF, 2016;NARAYANAMURTHY;GURUMURTHY, 2016;CHEN;SU;RO, 2017;KAMALAHMADI;PARAST, 2017;MOHAMMADDUST, et al, 2017).…”

“…So, an action plan may be strategically placed to eliminate or minimize them aiming to not to interrupt production. With the elimination of batch production and the insertion of a lean flow, reducing inventory, an essential factor that will be easily noticed is the quality of manufactured products, as problems related to quality will be easily detected and require quick, efficient and effective solution (VRIES, 2013;HASLE, et al 2012;SILVEIRA;SNIDER;BALAKRISHNAN, 2013;CHAVEZ, et al, 2013;DIBIA;DHAKAL;ONUH, 2014;THANKI;THAKKAR, 2014;PANWAR;JAIN;RATHORE, 2015;MARODIN;SAURIN, 2015;BR KUMAR;SHARMA;AGARWAL, 2015;BALL, 2015;PAKDIL;LEONARD, 2015;MUND;PIETERSE;CAMERON, 2015;CHAY, et al, 2015;HU, et al, 2015;BIRKIE, 2016;VENTO, et …”

“…Lean manufacturing is as a set of practices focused on reduction of wastes and non-value added activities from a firm's manufacturing operations (YANG, et al 2011;BROWN;SCHMITT;SCHONBERGER, 2015;HASLE, et al 2012;KUULA;PUTKIRANTA;TOIVANEN, 2012, BENNET;KLUNG, 2012;CHAVEZ, et al, 2013;HENDRY;HUANG;STEVENSON, 2013;BONNEY;JABER, 2013;DIBIA;DHAKAL;ONUH, 2014;THANKI;THAKKAR, 2014;PANWAR;JAIN, RATHORE, 2015;MARODIN;SAURIN, 2015;BR KUMAR;SHARMA;AGARWAL, 2015;BALL, 2015;PAKDIL;LEONARD, 2015;MUND;PIETERSE;CAMERON, 2015;CHAY, et al, 2015;HU, et al, 2015;WICKRAMASINGHE;WICKRAMASINGHE, 2016;BIRKIE, 2016;VENTO, et al, 2016;ALI;DEIF, 2016;NARAYANAMURTHY;GURUMURTHY, 2016;MOHAMMADDUST, et al, 2017).…”

“…Get output with high productivity will require that this concept is widespread in every stage of the production process. The industrial layout should be efficient and provide operational efficiency by eliminating most unnecessary transport and reducing the operation time in the shipyard (SILVEIRA; SNIDER; BALAKRISHNAN, 2013;CHAVEZ, et al, 2013;DIBIA;DHAKAL;ONUH, 2014;THANKI;THAKKAR, 2014;PANWAR;JAIN;RATHORE, 2015;MARODIN;SAURIN, 2015;EL-KHALIL, 2015;BR KUMAR;SHARMA;AGARWAL, 2015;BALL, 2015;PAKDIL;LEONARD, 2015;MUND;PIETERSE;CAMERON, 2015;CHAY, et al, 2015;HU, et al, 2015;BIRKIE, 2016;VENTO, et al, 2016;ALI;DEIF, 2016;NARAYANAMURTHY;GURUMURTHY, 2016;MOHAMMADDUST, et al, 2017).…”