Exploring industry 4.0 technologies as drivers of lean and agile supply chain strategies

The present global competition is forcing companies to expand and connect their “internal improvement processes“ with “external customers and suppliers“. Ensuring success in the face of fierce competition requires careful adoption of Supply Chain (SC) strategies alongside innovative capabilities such as Industry 4.0 technologies to enable such SC strategies. To improve organization's competitiveness and performance, modern day businesses are exploring the integration of SC strategies. Lean and Agile are two critical strategies because the former ensures efficient use of resources while the latter involves matching supply with demand in turbulent/unpredictable markets. Several studies have considered integration of different strategies/paradigms and their associated impact on SC; however, few have considered how Industry 4.0 technologies could enable these SC strategies for improved performance. This study presents a conceptual model that matches various principles/practices of Lean and Agile SC with industry 4.0 technologies (as drivers) for overall performance improvement. The conceptual model provides a decision supporting tool for practitioners at identifying potential industry 4.0 technologies in the context of lean-agile by way of motivating them on specific pillars of industry 4.0 to adopt for specific lean-agile strategies in achieving overall organizational goals. Other managerial and theoretical implications of the work are highlighted.