Lean supply chain planning: Simulation of lean techniques integration

Lean Supply Chain (LSC) has become a strategic configuration in order to satisfy customer's expectations efficiently and effectively. LSC concept is the implementation of Lean principles and techniques outside single company boundaries, creating the flow and making SC reacting instead of foreseeing. Supply Chain Planning (SCP) is a part of SCM management strategy that allows managers to align operations of different companies and so improve operations efficiency and effectiveness. Lean Supply Chain Planning (LSCP) is a new SCP model that is growing interest among both academics and practitioners, but it is not well studied yet. This paper aims at providing a theoretical and practical guidelines about Lean techniques implementations impact in SCP. To reach it, a Discret-event-simulation (DES) simulation model of a three-echelon and multi-product supply chain has been set. This research focuses on three principles of Lean production: identifying the value, creating flow to the customer and pull. The results achieved demonstrate that LSCP techniques have a positive impact on inventories levels and in particular, they demonstrate synergy among techniques so that total benefit is greater than the sum of benefits of single technique implementations.