Case Study

Introduction
This report provides a literature review of the article by Naylor et al. (1999) and use cases of real world companies’ choice to identify the integration of lean and agile in supply chain. In addition, it will focus on RFID technology and using examples to explain how RFID improves the supply chain performance. Finally, the potential implementation of RFID technologies will be discussed complement other existing relevant technologies.
  1. Critique review of the article by Naylor et al. (1999)
      2.1 Leanness and agility
Lean thinking begin with the “lean manufacturing” by TOYOTA which use the just-in-time philosophy to arrange production. It aims to reduce and remove all the waste in production process such as overstock and time delays. Therefore, the enterprise gain more profit with less investment.
As the words “agile”, agile manufacturing means the company should give an agility response to the volatile market. It is a company’s capability which includes the organization structures, information system, logistics process and especially mindset. With agile, the company can flexibility satisfies variable demand of their customers.
        2.2.1 Similarities
The main similarity for these two paradigms is that both of them focus on end-users’ demand, it directly impact on the choice of paradigm in the whole or part of supply chain. No matter which paradigm is used, the company should integrate the supply chain to meet the demand of their customers. Moreover, both of leanness and agility have a requirement of minimize the lead-time. The lean thinking goal is to eliminate the waste, in terms of time, it means compress lead-time. For agile manufacturing, the changeable market is always difficult to forecast, compress the lead-time from suppliers to customers is efficiently to response to the variable fluctuation of demand.    
        2.2.2 Difference
Firstly, they have different conceptions on provide the value to customers. The lean... [continues]

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