The relationship between lean management and resilience in the supply chain, whether negative or positive, is still not clear from the existing literature. This paper aims to investigate the relationship and links between lean and resilient supply chain (SC) practices and their impact on SC performance. To achieve this objective, the aerospace manufacturing sector (AMS) is chosen as the study sector because of the importance of both paradigms. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approach is used in order to identify linkages among various lean and resilience practices and SC performance metrics through a single systemic framework. ISM is an interactive learning process based on graph theory where experts’ knowledge is extracted and converted into a powerful wellstructured model. For that purpose, a heterogeneous panel of experts in the AMS was formed, providing a complete view of all SC levels in the sector. The final ISM model revealed that lean SC practices act as drivers for resilient SC practices, since implementing the former in isolation could lead to a more vulnerable SC. The findings also show that lean SC practices lead to a higher performance improvement than resilient SC practices. This is due to the fact that resilient SC practices do not exert influence over all SC performance metrics as it occurs with lean SC practices. In addition, several managerial implications regarding the most convenient practices in terms of the company’s objectives are drawn from this study.

Introduction

Supply chain management (SCM) leads on to increased organizational effectiveness, enhanced competitiveness, better customer care and increased profitability. SCM also promotes the integration between firms and their suppliers through the development of supplier partnerships and strategic alliances. Therefore, the set of practices selected to manage those relationships with suppliers is a critical issue since it will affect companies and overall supply chain (SC) performance (Gunasekaran et al., 2004). Lean is a work philosophy that defines the means for improvement and optimization of the production system focusing on identifying and eliminating all types of waste, reducing or minimizing the variability from demand to supply (Shah and Ward, 2007). Lean philosophy applied to manufacturing has been widely studied. Its application to SCM has started to interest companies as well. Firms must adopt lean, both internally and externally, spreading lean principles and practices through the whole SC in order to achieve all the potential benefits of this philosophy (Shah and Ward, 2007). Lean principles are, therefore, applicable to the whole SC, from the provider to the final distributor and the final customer delivery, leading to what is known as Lean SCM. In the last years, numerous interruptions and unexpected events derived from the nature’s action (earthquakes, tsunamis, floods,…) or the man’s action (cyber-attacks, terrorism, accidents,..) (Fahimnia et al., 2014; Tukamuhabwa et al., 2015), have perturbed the regular flow of products, components and materials along the SC (Svensson, 2000; Kleindorfer and Saad, 2010). As a result, operational and financial performances as well as the market have been harmed by such events (Hendricks and Singhal, 2003). This negative effect has spread through all the firms pertaining to the SC as well (Ambulkar et al., 2015). For this reason, SC risk management has been one of the more analyzed topics in the literature in the production/operations area. This interest was motivated by new business tendencies and the advance in information technologies and systems (Blackhurst et al., 2005; Giannakis and Papadopoulos, 2016; Hendricks et al., 2007). In addition, such advances have driven more complex global SC (Trkman and McCormack, 2009) managed under a greater uncertainty.