A study on lean supply chain performance measures of SMES in the automotive industry

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the concept of lean supply chain, and develop a list of performance measures for manufacturing small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the automotive industry. A total number of 28 performance measures were identified to represent the leanness of supply chain. Data were collected from 133 supply chain practitioners working at manufacturing SMEs in Iran's automotive industry. Lean supply chain performance was divided into four components (attributes), i.e. waste elimination, continuous improvement, just-in-time (JIT), and flexibility. Delivery & reliability (D&R) was selected as a representative for JIT. Flexibility was directly connected to the measures without any division. This study gives a real insight into the lean supply chain performance measures, and contributes to expand the knowledge in this area. The lean performance attributes and related measures can also be used as inputs for a lean supply chain performance measurement system.