The lean and green approaches revealed to have an important impact throughout the supply chain. The compatibilities that were identified between lean and green paradigms may help to achieve a more effective management system; this research makes several contributions on the supply chain management context and attempts to understand how to modelling a lean-green supply chain.
A literature review on supply chain management revealed that a number of paradigms namely lean, agile, resilient and green may influence the supply chain competitiveness. A comparison analysis between these paradigms was carried out, to understand eventual compatibilities and divergences. A structured literature review was refined to identify integrated approaches. This literature review revealed two things:
lean and green issues were not well integrated; companies seemed to look at these issues with different approaches.
business management frameworks were not well designed to help the integration process of lean and green and its implementation.
Having the chance to work with companies involved in a previous research project, it was confirmed that this problem was real. As such, further literature review on management frameworks was carried out. Thirteen different business management frameworks derived from international awards, standards and tools, were studied. These frameworks helped to understand the most important issues for an organization`s supply chain business. They were considered a convenient starting point for modelling a lean-green supply chain.
The literature review contributed to the knowledge of what may represent a lean-green approach; there are several studies about the two approaches, as they are considered of
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importance for the supply chain activities, but no one associates it with the research on business management frameworks, as is the case of this thesis. The decision to apply these two paradigms was merely because the lean and green are seen as approaches to achieve "best-in- class".
Through a better understanding of these frameworks, as well as the lean and green characteristics, it was intended to propose connections between these frameworks and the lean- green approach. The management frameworks mentioned a number of characteristics, and some of them, may be considered as "near-common" characteristics namely, leadership, people, strategic planning, stakeholders, processes and results, were considered as key criteria that could be included in a lean-green supply chain management framework.
A lean-green conceptual framework was developed; various stages were defined to facilitate the lean-green transformation process. First, the key criteria to evaluate the supply chain was defined; second, in connection with key criteria, a number of lean-green elements (representing different principles, practices, techniques and tools) were described; these elements were considered important for the development of the framework and they had to be adapted for the development of guidelines. The list of elements can be used to guide future improvements. An important advantage of this model is that it provides connections between lean and green at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. Therefore, it is believed that this research makes several original contributions because it, not only indicates how the two ways of management can be considered as a single one, but also indicates what the most important topics are. An assessment method with criteria and irrespective weighting scores to evaluate a lean-green organization`s supply chain was derived and proposed.
To complement this research a case study was developed to get information that only in a real-scenario could be understood. This multiple case study was developed to provide a depth understanding of the research. Consequently, the external validity was enhanced and investigator bias reduced. The automotive supply chain was selected because this type of industry has high levels of lean and green implementation which allow a deep understanding of their integration. The study was based on the upstream supply chain; the case study included an automaker, first-tier suppliers and LSPs hosted in a nearby Industrial Park.
The individual criterions of the conceptual framework were applied to the subsequent case analysis to determine if they could facilitate or inhibit the success of lean-green SC. Consistent with the research questions and the conceptual framework, specific subjects were asked to company managers concerning to each criterion. Moreover, the case study draw on multiple
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This research tries to contribute for the understanding of how to address lean-green approach in a supply chain. It provides insights of which activities must be put into action and which tools may be used in the transformation journey. An oriented-tool to help managers in this journey was developed. The oriented-tool was designed as a roadmap considering eight different stages that should go through, from the "current stage" to a "future stage", to achieve a lean-green transformation. This research provided a broad perspective on combining lean and green to assist organizations to achieve an effective SC. Lean and green will be integrated in the future of supply chains and this research work was designed to help in the lean-green transformation in the automotive industry, and eventually in other supply chains from other industry sectors.