In the intensely competitive environment in which companies and organizations operate, it is more than necessary for professionals who work in or interact with the supply chain to analyze the sweeping transformations the world is going through, of which supply chains are a part – and which therefore also change them, sometimes in response to the changes, sometimes as protagonists in the evolution of the market and of society. A first reason for this analysis is to identify processes that need to be adjusted in the short and medium term, preparing the organization for the changes in supply and competitive conditions that continually affect competitive relationships. Another reason in particular – and the one this article sets out to address – is to recognize the new knowledge and skills professionals need to acquire to cope with these transformations and better carry out the first reason for organizational change, bringing more quality and soundness to the decisions made in Supply Chain management.

Since the beginning of this century, it has become clear that the evolutionary path that is natural in human history has undergone an accelerated process of transformation that has given rise in the business world to the term “exponential”. Indeed, new situations, whether emergent or the result of deliberate actions, are growing at a speed that outpaces traditional ways of thinking through bureaucratic structures. From the need for an accelerated energy transition to prevent more serious climate change to the resurgence of internal and geopolitical polarization – reaching its highest degree of expression in some regions in wars –, the combinations of new scenarios have greatly increased the complexity and unpredictability of business. In this general context, terms such as agility and resilience gain prominence in companies' strategic discussions, but they run up against the limits of the internal capacities needed to actually implement them (capabilities).

So-called capabilities have also evolved, and today there is a consensus on pursuing dynamic capabilities , which are companies' abilities to increase their competitive advantage through the continuous creation, adoption and transformation of internal and external competencies and resources in response to, or even in anticipation of, changes in the context

This diagnosis has led to the consensus that it is human resources that naturally have this ability to continually reinvent themselves and to be protagonists in creating and transforming new capabilities along the chain, provided they are properly prepared with the knowledge and the method to carry out this collaborative mission. The Lean Management Model, recognized for its notable practical applications and research over almost 30 years – since Womack and Jones coined the expression Lean Thinking in 1996 –, takes on a leading role in this new, shifting reality and gains even more strength in preparing human resources, above all leaders, precisely because it embodies this ability to prepare people to identify and carry out continuous change in the right direction.

Applying this intrinsic capacity of lean thinking to qualifying leaders to carry out the complex management of the Supply Chain in a continuously changing world, we have structured three knowledge tracks for developing human resources. Properly supported by problem-solving-based learning, they bring more quality to decision-making, with a positive impact on results and on resilience in the face of change through their adaptive capacity.

1.  Lean supply chain forming ecosystems

Supply chain leaders must master the functions of planning, purchasing, supply, production and logistics, and relate them to the activities of people management, risk, customer service and customer experience, technology and ESG. Success in performing these expanded functions depends on adaptability, agility and resilience achieved through lean and agile processes, designed with the vision and practice of combined and integrated value streams, forming an ecosystemic structure, an expression meant to highlight its adaptive and creative capacity, natural to natural ecosystems, which the lean approach replicates within organizations and across the chain.

From this perspective, the concept of value stream mapping expands to cover the entire chain at macro-mapping levels, applying E2E VSM and deep dives into critical points when necessary and diagnosed through the systemic view. Other strategic concepts of the lean approach in the Supply Chain, which until the last decade were not known or properly practiced because organizations still favored applying lean within their own walls, are also gaining ground. This is the case of the Lean Fulfillment concept covered in this track. It aims to give leaders an ecosystemic view, based on designing instruments for interaction among all the agents in the chain to create value for the customer and serve the stakeholdrers, thus moving beyond the predominantly linear supplier-customer view to a view of a complex network of interactions between sources and customers-stakeholders.

The same happens with the view of Lean Purchasing, in which the “buying” function gains more substance as an integrated step in building a network of suppliers seen as strategic resources, with the aim of selecting partners not only for the immediacy of competitive short-term costs, but also for their dynamic capacity to reinvent themselves and continue supplying competitively in the face of environmental changes.

The resilience pursued in supply chains depends on this supplier development, and identifying and directing suppliers' potential should be one of the responsibilities of the purchasing function.

Still within the scope of building the Lean Supply Chain as an ecosystem, the lean approach brings leaders practical instruments for the ESG Agenda in the chain. Companies need to engage in a broad agenda of ambitious social and environmental targets and struggle with the multiplicity of initiatives, which can lead to misalignment and results below expectations, frustrating their efforts.

Designing circular-economy chains with lean techniques, combined with a leadership approach that promotes effective diversity, equity and inclusion of employees at the level of work and processes, is a powerful guiding instrument for achieving the sustainability agenda.

2.  Self-stabilization of supply chains

The Lean Supply Chain is notable for involving the entire organizational structure in constantly scanning for and solving problems in their early stages as a way of combining resilience and antifragility. The current geopolitical context, added to accelerated changes in context, requires supply chains to include this self-stabilization capacity in their structure.

At its conceptual core, lean thinking incorporates the method of equipping the chain with systems for identifying problems in operational lines of every kind, from customer relationships to supplier management and logistics. In particular, its method, materialized in tools such as the help chain, andon, poka-yoke and others, makes it possible to identify problems at their source, while they are still small and less complex, right where they arise, with an ecosystemic view. This capacity, addressed by leaders at their various levels together with their teams in order to identify causes and resolve them early, gives the chain a self-stabilization capacity that is essential for achieving resilience.

The control towers used in supply chain management, for example, once equipped with this lean self-stabilization capacity,  advance  to become command centers for the chain. The difference lies in combining tracking and visibility technologies with the ability to bring data to light in the search for causes in the chain or in the business ecosystem – and not simply in finding culprits or individuals to hold responsible. The aim is to find precise, specific information for each use case, as well as forecasts and suggestions that are discussed, shared and adapted to the experiences of each point in the ecosystem based on data from a more connected supply chain.

This advance in self-stabilization is achieved through the application of practical concepts such as applying visual management at all organizational levels, increasing understanding of what is happening in each part, bringing problems to light, combined with agile governance of the chain based on a daily management structure, typical of the lean approach, in which the data captured by visual management are consolidated in forums dedicated to problem solving at each level of the chain and properly interlinked. This creates a process of engaged communication, in which the governance structure ranges from daily management by leaders with their teams on each production line, logistics operation and administrative routine, all the way to its connection with the daily management of the business by top management. A management and decision tree encompassing the whole system.

The combination of these lean approaches will allow the supply chain to remain stable amid changes in context.

3.  Human-centered automation and digital transformation

Supply chains need to prioritize digital capabilities. However, with a heated job market for digital talent and a volatile economy, they must balance long-term investment in automation with the implementation of scalable digital solutions centered on the analysis of facts and data by teams or squads. Lean management is active in developing analytical capabilities in support of broader digital transformation across the chain, and its applications have given rise to new terms such as Lean Automation and Augmented Lean, which aim to guide leaders not yet accustomed to the synergy this thinking creates with digital efforts, beyond fads and unprepared forays into digital transformations that, in the end, do not deliver what they promise.

In the combination of digital transformation and automation, the convergence of technologies such as autonomous robots, Big Data, augmented reality, cloud computing, IoT and many others that may soon be incorporated aims to achieve a high degree of integration with full and broad physical and virtual connection, without departmental boundaries or organizational barriers – which is very much aligned with the ecosystemic view of the Lean Supply Chain.

The goal of having lean guide automation is to turn factories connected to logistics, markets and people into multiple networked agents, enabling a supply chain in which processed information generates knowledge and coordinates productive resources almost instantly, directing their capacity toward value creation through an integrated structure of people, machines and intelligent processes.

Machines and facilities digitally integrated in the cloud enable a high degree of synchronization across the entire chain, because they link the production flow to meeting demand and make us see the bullwhip effect as a phenomenon to be forgotten. Across the entire supply chain they achieve the goal sought by Lean of horizontal management of teams along the whole value stream, from marketing, sales and supply to production and delivery, not to mention all the steps and services associated with post-sale and post-consumption life, without boundaries between companies and departments, helping to build the ecosystemic perspective that allows everyone to take part in solving problems and adapting to new needs.

This perspective of total integration of the new technological base of Automation and Digital Transformation, which many have called Industry 4.0, is present in the concept of building Physical-Cybernetic Systems (CPS), defined as the tool for uniting the physical and digital domains through computer networks that monitor and control physical processes and involve control loops in which physical systems change digital systems and vice versa. With the lean approach, they also gain integration with the humans who take part in them and guide their construction toward the aspects most important to society, preventing data bias that could mistakenly feed databases for machine learning in wrong and non-priority directions.

This knowledge track for Supply Chain leaders combines concepts from the Lean Model and Industry 4.0. In doing so, it uses the lean concept to guide the introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies, following the success stories of Lean Startup, LPPD, Lean Digital and other derivations (or combinations) of lean and technology trends.

Two main perspectives of the Lean concept and Industry 4.0 are addressed: lean as a prerequisite for Industry 4.0 and lean as an interactive process with technologies to steer them in the right direction.

These perspectives work with the concept of short cycles of technology deployment to solve problems and enable deliverables that become sustainable as they generate continuous learning toward gradual and safe scalability, because they include interactions between teams and technologies that gradually gain maturity. This gradual gain in maturity does not mean slow, but sustainable, avoiding rework, saving effort and investment and, in the end, being faster in achieving the results promised by automation and digital transformation.

Final considerations

In this article, we have presented a qualification platform for lean Supply Chain Leaders at all levels of organizations that builds lean thinking along three axes necessary for competitive management in the face of today's intense transformations: the Supply Chain as an ecosystem, self-stabilizing chains, and human-centered automation and digital transformation.

These axes, properly guided by the lean concepts discussed here, aim to equip human resources with the necessary competencies so as to give the Supply Chain adaptive capacities in the right direction – a critical factor for management today and in the future.