An integrated model to assess the leanness and agility of the automotive industry

The main objective of this paper is to propose an index to assess the agility and leanness of individual companies and the corresponding supply chain. The index is named Agilean and is obtained from a set of Agile and Lean supply chain practices integrated in an assessment model.The Delphi technique is used to develop a series of weighted Agile and Lean SCM practices and also the importance of paradigms through experts in automotive research topics. As a way to illustrate the application of the index and find out if it returns return meaningful values, a case study is presented. The case study results confirm the quite easy applicability of the suggested Agilean index in a supply chain real-world setting. This index makes it possible to assess the companies and corresponding supply chain Agile and Lean behaviour, which is translated into an index score to compare competing companies and supply chains.

► We propose an index to assess the agility and leanness of companies and supply chains.
► We illustrate the index application with a case study in the automotive industry.
► The index score allows companies adjust their agility an leanness to desirable levels.
► Companies are best performers in the lean supply chain management paradigm.