Lean,agile or leagile? Matching your supply chain to the marketplace

Many enterprises have pursued the lean thinking paradigm to improve the efficiency of their business processes. More recently, the agile manufacturing paradigm has been highlighted as an alternative to, and possibly an improvement on, leanness. In pursuing such arguments in isolation, the power of each paradigm may be lost, which is basically that agile manufacturing is adopted where demand is volatile, and lean manufacturing adopted where there is a stable demand. However, in some situations it is advisable to utilize a different paradigm on either side of the material flow de-coupling point to enable a total supply chain strategy. This approach we have termed the Leagile Paradigm. This paper therefore considers the effect of the marketplace environment on strategy selection to ensure optimal supply chain performance. Real-world case studies in the mechanical precision products, carpet making, and electronic products market sectors demonstrate the new approach to matching supply chain design to the actual needs of the marketplace.     

Flows and fates of nickel–cadmium batteries in the City of Cape Town

The use and disposal of nickel–cadmium secondary cells (the basic components of NiCd batteries) in Cape Town, South Africa, has been investigated with the objective of quantifying the associated flows of cadmium. Small sealed cells were found to make the dominant contribution to overall cadmium flows, with cordless power tools and separately imported cells accounting for most of these. Essentially all of these cells either have or will enter the general waste streams of the city. Large industrial cells made a smaller but significant contribution to overall flows, but none were known to have entered the general waste stream. These went primarily to hazardous waste disposal outside the city or recycling abroad, with some going into storage. The results suggested that the city’s landfill stocks of cadmium are considerable, and that these could continue to grow in the future.     

Enlightening supplies [supply chain information]

Speed of information flow through a supply chain directly affects its operating success. There are 2 “pipelines”, one conveying orders from the customer towards the raw materials supplier and one conveying product the other way. The authors present the case for retail sales information to be shared freely with all tiers of the supply chain