Lean vs resilient supply chain: in search of the tipping point and synergies

Lean principles such as just-in-time and single sourcing have been proven to increase supply chain efficiency. Multiple crises such as COVID-19 pandemic and global semiconductor shortages have revealed fragility of lean supply chains when facing disruptions. Most of the recent research on supply chain resilience suggests moving away from lean and building redundancies to cope with disruptions. While the redundancies such as extra inventory, backup sourcing, and capacity reservations can help protect the supply chains and ensure operations continuity in the presence of disruptions, they might adversely affect efficiency. In these settings, two important questions arise: (i) do lean and resilience contradict each other? and (ii) can lean and resilience complement each other? In other words, we are asking a question if a supply chain can be both efficient and resilient. In this paper, conceptual frameworks AURA (active usage of resilience assets) and LCN (Low-Certainty-Need Supply Chain) which articulated the concept of lean resilience are extended toward the notion of a tipping point between lean and resilient. We propose a formal model that can be used to identify a combination of lean and resilience measures in the supply chain.