Application of Lean Agile Resilient Green Paradigm Framework on China Pakistan Economic Corridor: A Case Study

Abstract

China has recently emerged as the technological and economic giant and an attractive place for investment for MCNs (Multi-National Companies). Many of the high ranked MNC’s have shifted their production facilities to China due to low production cost.Finished products are transported through sea routes passing through Singapore and Sri Lanka, to different Middle Eastern, European and American countries. This major transition has lead to complete transformation of the global SC (Supply Chain);which resulted into extended transportation, distances and led time,thus affecting the four paradigms of SC i.e. lean, agile, resilient and green. Effective integration of all of these paradigms poses a significant challenge for the academia and industry related to SC.The common and critical success factors among these paradigms are reduction in transportation distances and most importantly lead time. Scenario planning technique is used in this study to analyze different trade routes originating from central China. CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) was identified as the most feasible and economical route owing to its reduced transportation distance and led time. CPEC route also provides us an opportunity to perform trade-offs between the four paradigms; focusing primarily on the critical success factors. These tradeoffs provide us a common ground which lead us to propose a new LARG (Lean Agile Resilient Green) framework. This framework was further validated with the help of results obtained from CPEC case study using scenario planning technique.