Supply chain planning: A quantitative comparison between lean and info-sharing models

Both practitioners and scientists recognise importance of supply chain planning (SCP) for improving supply chain (SC) effectiveness and efficiency. Although many SCP policies have been developed in past decades, the debate on the best SCP model is still an open issue. This article compares Lean and Info-Sharing approaches as SCP models, with the aim of allowing a better understanding of pros and cons of each of them and to identify under which condition Info-Sharing is better, and when, on the contrary, Lean is better. To complete this objective, a broad simulation study has been carried out. The results show that Lean Supply Chain Planning model leads to huge inventory saving but, on the other hand, it requires greater transportation efforts than information-sharing-based SCP model. These opposite outcomes do not clarify which models is more efficient but, a set of indexes has been developed in order to solve the gap created by these discordant indications. Managers can use the proposed indexes to position their supply chain in the proposed multi-dimensional space, and see whether info-sharing or Lean is the best for them. A few examples of the use of the set of indexes and the results of the research are presented at the end of the article.