J Intell Manuf (2017) 28:1–12 DOI 10.1007/s10845-014-0957-9 Analysis of enablers for the implementation of leagile supply chain management using an integrated fuzzy QFD approach A. Noorul Haq · Varma Boddu Received: 9 April 2014 / Accepted: 6 August 2014 / Published online: 6 September 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract Global competition and market uncertainty has forced organizations to become more responsive and efficient which thereby drives interest in the concept of supply chain leanness and agility. The leagile supply chain management paradigm includes lean and agile principles and has attained greater importance in the current scenario. The objective of this work is to identify the most appropriate leagile enablers for implementation by companies based on the characteris- tics of the related market by linking competitive bases, leagile attributes and leagile enablers. In this paper, a quality func- tion deployment (QFD) approach integrated with analytical hierarchy process and technique for order preference by sim- ilarity to ideal solution is proposed to enhance the leagility of the supply chain. Fuzzy logic is used to deal with lin- guistic judgments expressing relationships and the correla- tions required by QFD. The presentation of a case study from the Indian food processing industry illustrates the proposed methodology. This approach will help the management to exploit the most influential enablers in achieving the desired degree of leagility. Keywords Supply chain management · Leagile supply chain · Quality function deployment · Fuzzy logic · TOPSIS · AHP · Decision support Introduction Supply Chain is a network involving activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from the raw A. N. Haq · V. Boddu (B ) Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, India e-mail: varma0609@gmail.com A. N. Haq e-mail: anhaq@nitt.edu material stage to the end customer as well as associated information flows. Supply Chain Management is an inte- grating philosophy to manage the total flow of materials, products and information from suppliers to the end cus- tomers. Supply chain management increases the competi- tiveness of a firm and its supply chain, when the appro- priate supply chain strategy is chosen. Due to customers changing needs, increasing global competition and demand uncertainty, organizations strive to become more responsive and more efficient to sustain in stiff competition thereby driving the interest in concepts of supply chain leanness and agility. Leanness and agility are different paradigms, but when combined within one model, enable the supply chain’s success (Mason-Jones et al. 2000). The lean sup- ply chain is a strategy based on cost reduction and flexibil- ity, focused on processes improvement, through reduction or elimination of all non-value adding operations. Agile Sup- ply Chain focuses on promoting adaptability and flexibil- ity and has the ability to respond quickly and effectively to changing markets. In general, Lean supply chain is recom- mended where demand is relatively stable and predictable and cost is the priority. Whereas, agile supply chain is sug- gested where demand is volatile and speed is the priority. (Mason-Jones et al. 2000; Agarwal et al. 2006). Neither par- adigm is better nor worse than the other, indeed they are com- plementary within the correct supply chain strategy (Naylor et al. 1999). According to Naylor et al. (1999), these two strategies can be combined together to ensure the advan- tages of both. Combining agility and leanness in one sup- ply chain through the strategic use of a de-coupling point has been termed leagility (Naylor et al. 1999). Leagility is defined as the combination of lean and agile paradigms that when applied to the strategy of supply chain, responds satisfactorily to the volatile market demands. The lean and agile paradigms, though distinctly different, can be combined 123