A bibliometric study of Lean Supply Chain Management research: 1996-2020

Abstract

Lean Supply Chain Management is an emerging research field in Operations Management that is attracting growing attention from researchers and practitioners. This paper aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the Lean Supply Chain Management literature to understand the influence, basic research characteristics, interrelationships, and productivity of the research in this field. The present study uses BibExcel and VOSviewer software to conduct thorough bibliometric and network analyses of 715 papers published in the Web of Science database over the period 1996-2020. The use of bibliometric methods has enabled the identification of current and emerging research clusters to detect some key research topics, interrelations, and collaboration patterns. Moreover, this analysis has enabled to draw numerous conclusions and propose a roadmap for future research in the field. This paper, therefore, provides some new insights not previously evaluated in other reviews of Lean Supply Chain Management that can help researchers to understand the evolution of research trends through a proposed classification of the literature on this topic.