ABSTRACT
The organizational development following the philosophy of sustainability is becoming the prerequisite for companies, which urges and emphasizes them to incorporate social, economic, and environmental aspects into their manufacturing and operations. Despite plethora of researches exploring lean practices as the solution for improving productivity, it is limited to the operational aspects only, thus ignoring the other aspects of sustainability. Moreover, there is a dearth of studies that explored the combined effect of sustainable innovation, process innovation, and lean practices on the three aspects of sustainability. The current study is an attempt and contribution in the existing literature through the sample of 431 respondents from ISO 14001 certified Chinese organizations during COVID-19 pandemic conditions. The estimations were performed through the Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling. The results revealed a positive association among the proposed hypothesis of aforementioned studied phenomena. In addition, the current study explores the role of sustainable innovation as a mediator between lean and three dimensions of the sustainability, which is reportedly found to be a partial mediator as both direct and indirect effects are found to be statistically significant. Through the findings of the current study, the managers and decision makers can comprehend the potential of the possible benefits which can be reaped by incorporating both lean and sustainability within their operations. Copyright © 2022 Liu, Ding, Wen, Gao, Wang and Sun.
ABSTRACT
Covid-19 stressed supply for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) [1]. Lean practices have traditionally been proven to support stability in most operations [2], however, the pandemic highlighted concerns regarding lean system resilience in healthcare [2], [5], [6]. In this paper we evaluate supply chain resilience in the provision of PPE for medical staff in the United Kingdom through a content analysis of online government documents and press releases using a three-phase model: proactive, concurrent, and reactive. We propose a framework for future work on risk management approaches seeking to mitigate the effects of pandemic style disruption resulting from our emerging themes which include the identification and appreciation of critical suppliers, the location of warehouses and distribution centers and the impact of rapid restructuring of healthcare systems. A key recurrent theme is the need to integrate information and collaboration between government and the private sector and our data suggests that contrary to many beliefs, lean approaches are a valid tool. © 2021 IEEE.