This is an Open Access document downloaded from ORCA, Cardiff University's institutional

repository: http://orca.cf.ac.uk/80046/

This is the author’s version of a work that was submitted to / accepted for publication.

Citation for final published version:

Potter, Andrew, Towill, Denis R. and Christopher, Martin 2015. Evolution of the migratory supply
chain model. Supply Chain Management 20 (6) , pp. 603-612. 10.1108/SCM-06-2015-0231 file

Publishers page: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-2015-0231 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-

2015-0231>

Please note:
Changes made as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing, formatting and page
numbers may not be reflected in this version. For the definitive version of this publication, please
refer to the published source. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite
this paper.

This version is being made available in accordance with publisher policies. See
http://orca.cf.ac.uk/policies.html for usage policies. Copyright and moral rights for publications
made available in ORCA are retained by the copyright holders.
Evolution of the Migratory Supply Chain Model

Abstract

Purpose: In 2000, a migratory model for supply chain evolution was proposed. The purpose
of this paper is to reflect upon the impact of the original work and provide an updated model
to reflect the changing environment for supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach: We start by analysing the content of the papers that have
cited the original Christopher and Towill (2000) paper. The development of an updated
migratory model is informed by the findings from this, and then demonstrated through a case
study of the book supply chain.
Findings: Despite being the major contribution, the majority of citing papers actually use
other parts of the original work and some potential reasons for this are proposed. An extra
stage is added to the migratory model, reflecting a customer centric strategy.
Research limitations/implications: Given that the migratory model appears under-
researched, we identify this as an opportunity for future research and suggest that methods
less common in supply chain management are used.
Practical implications: The updated migratory model can be used by supply chain managers
to develop appropriate supply chain strategies for their organisations, while emphasising that
many of the underlying tools to enable this reflect traditional industrial engineering
approaches.
Originality: The updated migratory model represents a new contribution to understanding
the evolution of supply chains.

Key words: Lean, agile, leagile, book supply chain, customer centric, omnichannel

1. Introduction
The paper by Christopher and Towill (2000) was written at the height of the debate on the
virtues and points of conflict between lean processes arising from the popularity of the
Toyota Production System (Shingo, 1989, and Ohno, 1988) and agile processes (Nagel and
Dove, 1991), and to the practicability of mixing these two types in real world delivery
systems (Mason-Jones et al., 2000). Christopher and Towill (2000) was targeted at
developing a rationale for bringing these two disparate process types together, in the course
of which the Migratory Model was a logical outcome. This debate was much stimulated by
contributions involving Fisher et al. (1994) and Fisher (1997). In the latter paper the author
pointed out the apparent contradictory characteristics of ‘modern’ supply chains. For example
automotive factory throughput times had been slimmed down to 12 hours or less, yet
inventory was typically two months sales, and customers still had to wait weeks (or even
months) to get the car of their choice.

Fisher (1997) argued strongly that the supply chain total product delivery costs are given by
summing physical delivery process costs and marketability costs. The physical costs include
production, distribution, and storage, and marketability costs include all obsolescence and
stock out costs. It is thus clear that physical costs dominate lean supply whereas marketability
costs dominate agile supply. Of course a particular value stream may consist of many lean
processes and also agile processes, in deliberate combination to achieve a specific delivery
objective. Thus a lean process is often followed by an agile process (as used in Dell computer
supply) and termed “Leagile” supply (Naylor et al. 1999), but an agile process can be
followed by a lean process (as found in timber preparation) and termed “Agilean” supply
(Towill and Christopher 2007). Note that physical costs dominate lean supply, whereas
marketability costs dominate agile supply. This statement yields an immediate clue as the
requisite ‘fit’ between customer requirement and supply chain typology.

The build-up supporting the Migratory Model paper is shown in schematic form in Figure 1.
Concise definitions from Naylor et al. (1999) were adopted as follows;

“Agility means using market knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit profitable
opportunities in a volatile marketplace”

and

“Leanness means developing a value stream to eliminate all waste, including time, and to
enable a level schedule”

The importance of following these definitions with Terry Hill's (1993) Market Qualifier
(MQ)/Order Winner (OW) concept is the need for selection of appropriate KPIs consonant
with the supply chain types. It was Johannson et al. (1993) who highlighted the importance of
focussing on a just a few (preferably only four) KPIs to control delivery value streams, with
their preference for Lead Time, Cost, Service Level, and Quality. Having worked on a real
world supply chain with 528 KPIs monitored quarterly, they further showed an example
whereby 26 highly individualistic measures (i.e. as would be advocated and vigorously
defended by "players" within the system) could be readily compressed into four such KPIs
which everyone in a particular value stream could identify with the end-to-end performance
of the business. The further simple step of identifying the requisite MQs and OWs
immediately and succinctly associates the competitive and supply chain strategy (Godsell et
al., 2011).

Thus in general, cost is the OW for a lean process, whereas service level is the OW for an
agile process. It is possible to associate particular attributes with lean, and with agile delivery,
points which will be taken up later when the very relevant Narasimhan et al. (2006) output is
discussed in detail. A high standard of integration is necessary for efficient and effective
supply chain performance whether lean or agile, as evident from the FORRIDGE design and
operating principles (Towill, 1997), which date back to Forrester (1961) and Burbidge
(1961).
Market
“Lean”/ “Lean”/ Supply
Qualifiers/ De-coupling Migratory
“Agile” “Agile” Chain
Order Point Model
definitions attributes Integration
Winners

Figure 1: Build up to the Migratory Model (based upon Christopher and Towill, 2000)

It is the decoupling-point which enables the constructive bringing together of lean and agile
processes to deliver both customer and supplier value. But there are two decoupling points to
be optimally located, for material flow and for information flow (Mason-Jones and Towill,
1997). The former represents a stock holding of, say sub-assemblies, whereas the latter is the
transition point between movement based on sales and that based on forecasts. Obviously
these two forms of decoupling points help shape the product variety via the postponement
philosophy (Lee and Billington, 1994)

However, it is uncommon for organisations to start their operations from this leagile position.
As others have noted (such as Harmonzi, 2001), production methods and their associated
supply chains evolve over time and this can also be evidenced through industrial practice,
such as the personal computer supply chain example in the original paper. Therefore, a four
stage model of this process was developed, and represented the major contribution of
Christopher and Towill (2000).

Fifteen years after the original publication of the paper, there is some value in reflecting upon
its academic impact and how other researchers have built upon the work through theory
testing. We also acknowledge that the world today is significantly different to that at the turn
of the century, and therefore update the migratory model to reflect these developments.

2. Academic impact of the original paper

A list of citing publications was taken from Scopus (n = 251) and CrossRef (n = 170), the two
databases used by Emerald in relation to citations. From these initial lists, duplicates were
removed and the list was further refined so that only English language journal papers were
included. Journal papers are often seen as the main publication output (Drott, 1995), while
there would be a risk of mis-interpretation if foreign language papers were translated (citing
papers were written in German, Portuguese and Chinese). Further, this approach is consistent
with other systematic literature review papers (Seuring and Gold, 2012). As a result, a final
sample of 191 papers remained for further analysis.
Figure 2 shows the number of citations of the paper per year – where pre-prints were found,
they are included in the year recorded on Scopus or CrossRef. Overall the paper is averaging
between 14 and 15 citations per year over the past 10 years. It is clear that concepts contained
therein continue to influence thinking today, rather than having a short timescale of impact.
In terms of where this influence is occurring, the paper is cited in 82 distinct journal titles,
with the top 24 shown in Table 1. These 30% account for 70% of the citations. The majority
of the journals featuring in the table could be categorised as operations and technology
management (Harvey et al., 2010), core aspects of the original paper. The presence of Supply
Chain Management: An International Journal at the top shows how this journal is building
upon content contained within it.

200

175
Cumulative Number of Citations

150

125

100

75

50

25

0
2000*

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015*

Year
* Part year
Figure 2: Cumulative citations per year for Christopher and Towill (2000)
Journal Title No. of citing papers
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal 21
International Journal of Production Economics 14
International Journal of Production Research 12
International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics
11
Management
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management 11
International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management 10
International Journal of Operations and Production Management 8
Benchmarking 6
Production Planning and Control 5
International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 4
Industrial Management and Data Systems 3
International Journal of Services and Operations Management 3
Journal of Operations Management 3
Business Process Management Journal 2
Computers and Industrial Engineering 2
Decision Sciences 2
International Journal of Integrated Supply Management 2
International Journal of Lean Six Sigma 2
International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications 2
Journal of Cleaner Production 2
Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management 2
Logistics Research 2
Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 2
Symphonia 2
Table 1: Journals featuring citing papers

The content of each paper was coded against the sections of the paper shown in Figure 1 to
examine which aspects have been particularly used, as shown in Table 2. In a number of
cases, the citing paper draws on multiple sections of the original work. Based on Naim and
Gosling (2011), two further distinctions are made: the extent of use, either as a passing
reference or where the paper can be seen to directly influence the research, and whether the
citing authors are totally independent of Christopher and Towill and their research teams
(colleagues, staff and students) or not.
Total Extent of use Relationship to authors
Number of Passing Used in
Independent Dependent
Citations reference research
‘Lean’/ ‘Agile’ 48 47 1 47 1
definitions
Market Qualifiers 41 28 13 31 10
and Order Winners
‘Lean’ / ‘Agile’ 39 29 10 33 6
attributes
Supply chain 43 37 6 41 2
integration
De-coupling point 36 28 8 32 4
Migratory model 16 9 7 10 6
Table 2: Nature of citations for Christopher and Towill (2000)

Despite being the main contribution, the migratory model has received far fewer citations
than any of the other parts of the paper, although the citing research has developed it in more
detail (as a percentage of papers) and particularly through dependent research. Most of the
citing papers note that the supply chain evolves, with Borgström and Hertz (2011) showing
that this process can be influenced by company strategy, economic situations, gaming by
actors and functional silos.

Of the remaining sections, the definitions particularly feature as passing references. More
often than not, the definition of agility is used although there are nine papers where it is used
to define lean. While the MQ/OW discussion draws more on dependent citations, one
interesting insight can be found in Godsell et al. (2011). They highlight that two schools of
thought relating to these exist, depending upon whether supply chain strategy is set before or
after these are known. This difference is evident in other citing papers, such as Reiner and
Trcka (2004), where strategy comes first, and Sweeney (2011), where they are used to set
strategy. However, Godsell et al. (2011) go further by proposing a framework that combines
these two approaches to facilitate the development of a segmented supply chain strategy.

Considering the papers citing the attributes, Table 3 is particularly developed, both in terms
of alternative attributes (for example, Ramesh and Devadasan, 2007; Lyons and Ma’aram,
2014), in other contexts such as sustainability (Carvalho et al., 2011; Dües et al., 2013; Youn
et al., 2012), for additional supply chain structures (Baramichai et al., 2007; Soni and Kodali,
2009) and applied to particular products (Bakker et al., 2008). Multifarious aspects of the
supply chain are developed through the citing literature, including complexity, information
sharing, integration and virtuality. By contrast, the de-coupling point approach is considered
less, although the emergent research makes the case for multiple decoupling points (Huang
and Li, 2010), the role of capital investment in positioning these (Nieuwenhuis and Katsifou,
2015) and the importance of strategic inventory at these points (Drake and Lee, 2009). An
interesting application that reinforces this can be found in the humanitarian sector, where
planning is ‘lean’, the response is agile and the de-coupling point occurs where strategic, pre-
positioned inventory is held (Oloruntoba and Gray, 2006).

Distinguishing attributes Lean supply Agile supply

Typical products Commodities Fashion goods
Marketplace demand Predictable Volatile
Product variety Low High
Product life cycle Long Short
Customer drivers Cost Availability
Profit margin Low High
Dominant costs Physical costs Marketability costs
Stockout penalties Long term contractual Immediate and volatile
Purchasing policy Buy goods Assign capacity
Information enrichment Highly desirable Obligatory
Forecasting mechanism Algorithmic Consultative
Table 3: Distinguishing attributes of lean and agile supply (Mason-Jones et al., 2000)

The above analysis of the citations gives some interesting insights, especially as such a
measure is often used as a proxy for evaluating research quality (Andras, 2011). Although
Table 2 only distinguishes between passing use and a detailed examination, it appears that
those citations that make passing use fall in to two categories. In the first, the authors are
using the paper to substantiate their arguments, even if the research is investigating a slightly
different topic. The second is where there is little or no connection between the paper and the
presented research. Other research (such as Salimi et al., 2015) has found that “star scientists”
contribute to higher citation rates, and it may be that there are other motivations for citing a
particular paper.

Further, we have identified an important construct from our detailed citation analysis. That is
that the individual exploitation of such supply chain research may arise not necessarily from
the final output (the Migratory Model) but from a critical preceding building block
(Lean/Agile Attributes). This unexpected conclusion suggests that the importance of a paper
may lie within the body of knowledge contained therein, rather than the final output. What
we do not know is if this is a general or a minority result. A broad based study to determine
the answer to this question is obviously a topic for further research.

3. Reflecting on the Migratory Model

Given this, we now consider why the Migratory Model has not been tested further. It is clear
that there are strengths in the original model. The theoretical building blocks upon which it is
founded are well cited by a wide range of authors in a range of applications. Further, there is
evidence that it can be transferred to industries other than the PC supply chain originally
studied. However, there are weaknesses too, which raise some further questions to be
addressed.

The first of these is that research often considers a firm or plant at a particular point in time
and therefore ignores how the organisation reached this point, or where it might go next. The
prevalence of positivist survey research in supply chain management is also not conducive to
examining this. A potentially fruitful way to examine the migration would be to pursue
longitudinal studies of plants in different markets and technological environments. Such
research is often suggested as being valuable in supply chain management research, but few
studies are published using this approach (Boyer and Swink, 2008). One factor here may be
the timeframe for the evolution to take place. In the original paper, the evolution of the PC
supply chain took over 20 years, yet research timeframes are often dictated by the duration of
a PhD or research project (typically 3 to 5 years).

Of the cases that we have found, they either feature well document transitions (the PC supply
chain) or authors who have been embedded in the industry sectors for an extended period
(Borgström and Hertz, 2011, Nieuwenhuis and Katsifou, 2015). This form of “engaged
scholarship” (van de Ven, 2007, cited in Nieuwenhuis and Katsifou, 2015), which often
builds up extensive but unstructured tacit knowledge to complement more formal research
methods, may offer an alternative approach, but is a method rarely seen in supply chain
management research.

A second weakness to be considered is whether an industry as a whole migrates or if, within a

particular sector, there are firms at different stages of the migration, and also whether all
firms within an industry need to evolve to survive. Some studies (such as Childerhouse and
Towill, 2006) show a range of firms at different stages although the number of cases is
relatively low. However, one piece of work (Narasimhan et al., 2006) has been identified that
gives detailed insights into this through large scale survey based research, and is discussed in
detail in the section 4 below.

Finally, while the building blocks have been tested and therefore updated through further
research, the lack of an evaluation of the migratory model means that there is the potential for
it to not reflect supply chain management today. This lack of recency has the potential to
therefore supress the model’s usefulness, creating a vicious circle. To address this concern,
we consider the case of the book industry in section 5.

4. Further exploration of lean and agile

The original paper (Christopher and Towill, 2000) summarised the major differences between
lean supply and agile supply as the set of distinguishing attributes summarised in Table 3.
Agile supply is market sensitive and is thus responsive to real demand as distinct from
forecast-driven operations. As Christopher (1998) explained, when IT enables comprehensive
data sharing between customers and suppliers, an information based virtual supply chain is
created. However, such consequential benefits can only be fully realised via process
integration, which in turn necessitates a high standard of industrial systems engineering. This
is typically based on the FORRIDGE Principles (Towill 1997) as widely exemplified in
Towill and Gosling (2014).

The seminal paper by Narasimhan et al. (2006) cites Christopher and Towill (2000) and an
associated follow-up publication (Christopher and Towill, 2001) to advantage. In particular
they point out that the findings from the statistical analysis of their extensive horizontal
survey of 62 industrial ‘low’ performers, 137 industrial ‘lean’ performers (equivalent to
stages I and II of the migratory model), and 82 industrial ‘agile’ performers (stages III and
potentially IV) are consistent with the differences posited by Christopher and Towill (2000),
hence underpinning the latter paper with widely based hard evidence. Of particular interest is
the significant difference in Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) established between the
various performer categories. Of seven KPIs analysed, ‘lean’ organisations were superior
only along the Cost dimension. For the remaining six KPIs (Process Flexibility, New Product
Flexibility, Delivery Speed, Delivery Reliability, Design Quality and Process Quality), ‘agile’
organisations performed better, with the greatest differences being associated with delivery
and flexibility. This finding is consistent with both Cardiff and Cranfield predictions (Naylor
et al 1999; Christopher and Towill, 2000, 2001; Mason-Jones et al, 2000). We note in passing
that this result is a very positive indication of the high level of industrial systems engineering
associated with agile processes showing that most if not all activities have been analysed and
improved.

Narasimhan et al (2006) also took the ‘lean’ ~ ‘agile’ debate into new territory which
considerably aids understanding of the specification, design, and operation of industrial
processes. This extension summarised in Figure 3, identifying company practices found to be
associated with the different categories of performers. For example it has been established
that there are no practices for which lean processes are found to be dominant: in only two
(statistical quality control and benchmarking practices) are they a presence sufficient to
match their significance in agile processes. Furthermore there are five work practices
(including customer orientation and team working) found to be significantly more prevalent
in ‘agile’ companies. Finally, there are a further ten work practices typically found only in
agile organisations, despite the fact that a number (such as JIT) are, on this evidence, wrongly
associated with lean processes. In other words, various work practices claimed to be an
essential precursor to lean production, are not actually incorporated until there is a need to
enable agility.
Lean Performers Agile Performers

(n = 137) (n = 82) (a) Those practices equally significant

amongst both ‘lean’ and ‘agile’

Much Evidence Much Evidence • Statistical Quality Control

• Benchmarking

(b) Those practices significantly more

prevalent in ‘agile’
• In-House Technology
Some Evidence Much Evidence • Customer Orientation
• Integrated Product Design
• Team Working
• Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

(c) Those practices significantly present

only in ‘agile’
Little Evidence Much Evidence • Supply Base Rationalisation
• Manufacturing Strategy Integration
• Workforce Development
• Cellular Manufacturing
• Supplier Partnership
• Vendor Development
• Total Quality Management
N.B. ‘Low’ performers n = 62 • JIT Flow
• Supplier Information Sharing
• Strategic Suppliers

Figure 3: Company practices established to be significantly present in ‘lean’ and ‘agile’

performers (based on Narasimhan et al. 2006)

The Narasimhan et al. (2006) empirical results indicate that the prevalence of agile and lean
performing plants differs significantly across industry types, and therefore addressing one of
the weaknesses of Christopher and Towill (2000) discussed earlier. However, there still
appears to be substantial numbers of both types of plants in each industry thereby identified.
For these plants, Narasimhan et al. (2006) argue that leanness might indeed be a precursor to
agility. Harmonzi (2001) also suggests that plants move along an evolutionary path,
transitioning from one performance group to another in “manufacturing phase shifts”. Do
plants evolve in this way? Should they seek to do so? Narasimhan et al. (2006) consider these
as questions for future research, yet the earlier evidence from Christopher and Towill (2000)
suggests that this migration does occur and provides further impetus for revisiting the model
in the light of modern supply chain practices.

5. The book supply chain

In revisiting the migratory model, we consider the book supply chain, with a summary in
Table 4. The mass production of books was started by Johannes Gutenburg in Mainz,
Germany on 1450 (Cope, 2001) and, while centralisation and globalisation of manufacture
due to improved transport networks occurred, there is evidence of this basic approach
continuing into the 1990s. As KPMG (1998) report, the book supply chain in the UK at this
time was beset by functional silos and a focus on unit production costs, with the result that
over 60 days of stock existed within the system. Many of these characteristics reflect stage I
of the migratory model.
Supply chain Future
I II III IV
evolution phase Developments
Supply chain Product driven Market Market driven Customer
philosophy orientated driven
Time marker Until the 1990s 1990s 2000s Early 2010s Late 2010s
Evidence from Mass Focus on Emergence of Digital printing Production of
the book supply production of streamlining online book allowing short single books
chain books started in supply chains retailing and e- or single print where reader
1450. enabled by books. runs. chooses
Functional developments Traditional Customised content.
silos and over in desktop bookstores books and self- Interactive
60 days of publishing tailoring publishing content leads to
stock product range. grows. the
multichannel
novel
Table 4: Application of migratory model to the book supply chain

The emergence of desktop publishing software in the 1990s enabled changes to the
economics of book production, reducing the composition cost of a typical textbook by 70%
(Barnard, 1999). This gave opportunities to reduce batch sizes and ‘lean’ the supply chain as
a whole, while maintaining in-store product ranges in the tens or even hundreds of thousands
(Edwards et al., 2008). Therefore, it could be considered that stage II was reached during this
time.

The widespread emergence of alternative distribution channels in the 2000s signalled the
migration to Stage III of the model. Customers could now choose to visit a bookstore, order
online for home delivery or download an e-book. As Cope (2001) noted, for physical copies
of books, there was little change in the supply chain beyond bypassing the bookstore
although with e-books there were more fundamental changes. Consequently, distinct de-
coupling points for each channel also emerged. The consequence of this has been the decline
of the traditional bookstore, as online retailers have gained significant market share (Baye et
al., 2013). However, this is also encouraging a leagile response from these retailers – in the
UK, Waterstones increasingly tailors its in-store stock to reflect the local market (Key Note,
2014).

The 2010s has seen increasing levels of customisation provided in the book supply chain, for
example through the provision of course specific textbooks. The quality of digital printing is
beginning to meet market expectations thereby enabling smaller production runs and even
print-on-demand solutions for the mass market (Holman, 2009). As a result of this, plus
access to e-book distribution channels, self-publishing has emerged as a viable route to
market for many authors (Key Note, 2014) further increasing the range of titles available to
the market while meeting the other requirements of a customer driven strategy. While the
market share for this route is relatively small and often targeted at more niche topics, there
are also examples of extremely successful titles (for example James, 2012).
The above evidence would support the continuation of the migratory model in its current
form, with the book industry just reaching Stage IV. It is also clear from this evolution is
that, despite the many supply chain changes that have occurred, the physical book still
accounts for the largest percentage of sales in this market (Key Note, 2014). Therefore, the
additional supply chains are both additional and complementary to the processes started over
500 years ago. The suggestion that an industrial sector includes firms at all of the stages is
further supported. However, there are other developments not mentioned above that suggest
the model is in need of refinement.

Firstly, it is clear that the book industry, like many others, has embraced the sustainability
agenda and this has then fed through to its supply chain. The use of recycled paper has been
particularly encouraged since the 1990s (Vermaas, 2014), when the industry was in Stages I
and II, while initiatives such as the Book Industry and Environmental Council (BIEC) in the
USA and green4books in the UK have encouraged wider sustainability in the industry. For
example, there has been an increase use of both recycled fibre content and Forest
Stewardship Council certified paper over the past 2 decades (BIEC, 2014). The migration to
Stages III and IV in the book industry have seen some radical changes to the supply chain
structure and, while there are suggestions that these improve environmental performance,
there has been some research that suggests a more mixed picture for both online retailing
(Edwards et al., 2010) and e-books (Vermaas, 2014). Regardless, the environment or
sustainability does not feature in the migratory model.

Secondly, it is necessary to look at developments that are emerging on the horizon that may
affect the supply chain further. Cope (2001) had a vision that books in the future would be
fully customised, available through multiple distribution channels, have a totally automated
supply chain and, for physical copies, be able to economically support a print run of one.
Digital printing technology, including its supporting IT systems, continues to advance,
enabling customisation to suit particular markets and the viable printing of single copies (Pate
and Tan, 2014). The multichannel novel is emerging, where the book (both physical and
electronic) is embedded in a wider, online presence including games and social media (Key
Note, 2014). This servitisation of the novel offers opportunities for publishers to develop
stronger links with customer and grow their revenue streams through, for example, in-game
purchases. What is clear is that the level of focus on the customer is likely to be greater than
currently suggested by the migratory model, with a consequential impact on OW and MQ.

5. The Migratory Model revisited

The past fifteen years have seen significant developments, and not just in the book industry,
with the emergence of sustainability as a core business requirement, substantial technological
developments and growing global trade and economic development. However, many supply
chain management principles remain fundamentally similar, perhaps illustrated by the
continuing presence of lean and agile in the literature. Given this, we present an updated
Migratory Model in Table 5.
Supply chain
I II III IV V
evolution phase
Supply chain Product driven Market Market driven Customer Customer
philosophy orientated driven centric
Supply chain Lean functional Lean supply Leagile supply Customised Multiple
type silos chain chain leagile supply leagile supply
chain chains
Order Winner Quality Cost Availability Lead time Lead time
Market Cost Availability Lead time Sustainability Sustainability
Qualifiers Availability Lead time Sustainability Quality Quality
Lead time Sustainability Quality Cost Cost
Sustainability Quality Cost Availability Availability
Performance Stock turns Throughput Market share Customer Technological
metrics Production cost time Total cost satisfaction capability
Physical cost Value Added Level of
Servitisation
Table 5: Updated Migratory Model

Stages I to IV remain the same as previously, save for the inclusion of sustainability as an
additional MQ. Despite growing interest in this area, it could not yet be considered
universally as an OW. However, there is no doubt that it has emerged as an important issue
when determining supply chain strategy for leading organisations (Walker and Jones, 2012).
Further, unlike other MQ and OW criteria, the level of sustainability should not vary across
the different stages of the migratory model. We now also add Stage V to take into account
further supply chain developments since the original paper was published, as evidenced in the
book supply chain.

This stage can be considered ‘customer centric’ where the customer does more than just
choose from limited options given by the supply chain. Instead, they are more heavily
involved in actually specifying the supply chain (Abney, 2014), exploiting the opportunities
arising from increasing technological power. At one extreme of the supply chain, we are
witnessing the rise of omnichannel retailing, where the distinction between physical and
online supply chains is disappearing (Brynjolfsson et al., 2013). Customers can choose how,
when and where they want to get their products from, requiring multiple integrated supply
chains to achieve this. Effectively, this is a distribute-to-order strategy. At the other extreme,
changing manufacturing technologies have the potential for customers to effectively
engineer-to-order the products they need (Anderson, 2013). If this can be incorporated into
larger scale production systems, then there is the potential to challenge the traditional
manufacturing strategy trade-offs between volume and variety (Tuck et al., 2008). Evidence
for this happening, however, it limited to date. Being ‘customer centric’ is likely to require
structural flexibility, where the supply chain can adapt to fundamental change. In doing so,
exploiting economies of scope and making use of shared assets will become important supply
chain strategies.

The OW and MQ criteria are identical to stage IV in name, but customers are more exacting
in stage V. Lead times remain the OW and need to be similar or the same for all delivery
routes. However, customers also expect little or no cost difference between these channels,
which is already creating challenges for retailers (Ahmed, 2015, Espiner, 2015) and logistics
providers (Stead, 2015) and may not be economically sustainable in the long term.
Availability requirements have become more exacting, given the ease with which customers
can switch between retailers in an online environment. As Brynjolfsson et al. (2013) note,
traditional barriers that retained customers for retailers, such as geography or a lack of
awareness, no longer exist with online supply chains. Finally, quality remains an important
MQ, and depending upon the nature of the supply chain evolution, may actually prohibit a
move to stage V. As discussed earlier, quality has been an issue with the move to print-on-
demand book titles and is also a potential issue with current additive manufacturing
technologies (Holmström, J. and Partanen, J., 2014).

Turning to the performance metrics, these have moved away from traditional measures of
supply chain performance to recognise some of the underlying principles that contribute to a
customer centric focus. As has already been discussed, technology is a key enabler. This
builds on the use of advanced manufacturing technologies found by Narasimhan et al. (2006)
in agile organisations. Technology needs to be provided to provide the required information
throughout the supply chain, including the customer. The other measure is the level of
servitisation. This concept has become increasingly important for manufacturing organisation
(Baines et al., 2009) and recognises that additional customer value and revenue for the supply
chain can be generated providing services to complement the physical product (such as the
multichannel book concept). Customer centricity is not just about involving the customer in
supply chain decision making but building relationships with them, with servitisation having
a key role in this.

7. Discussion
The above discussion highlights a number of important aspects for supply chain management
going forwards. At a strategic level, it is clear that if looking at a sector as a whole, an
evolutionary path emerges. However, how this translates to firm level actions varies. For
some firms, their evolution reflects that of the sector as a whole, although they may not be at
the forefront of this. Often, these are the larger players in a sector – in the book supply chain,
an example would be the major publishers who are beginning to adopt the ‘print-on-demand’
and multichannel novels. However, smaller players can occupy distinct niches although their
relative market shares are influenced by changes in the market as a whole. Traditional
bookstores may be declining, but they still service a particular niche. Likewise, the self-
publishing route has created new players within the industry. Consequently, a diverse picture
emerges of firms at different stages, as witnessed by Narasimhan et al. (2006).

In terms of achieving a customer centric strategy, it is clear that technology has an important
role to play. However, the extent to which this is moving decoupling points is limited both in
terms of scale and also sectors. Additive manufacturing currently offers opportunities for
small scale production items but there is less evidence of it radically changing higher volume
supply chains. Likewise, digital printing does not see extensive use currently. Therefore,
decoupling points for many products remains close to the customer. Thinking back to the PC
supply chain example from the 2000 paper, the modular approach of Dell has been
supplemented by omnichannel retailing routes, but customers are not yet able to influence the
design of the components making up the modules.

Finally, in terms of the tools that support this transformation, there is still a reliance on
traditional industrial engineering approaches that can be traced back through the FORRIDGE
principles to the work of the Gilbreths and others in the early 20th century (Towill, 2010). The
work of Narasimhan et al. (2006) shows how these are deployed generally within both lean
and agile contexts, while KPMG (1998) considers how, at that point in time, the book supply
chain could be improved using such tools. Despite the disruptive introduction of new players
into this sector (such as Amazon), it has taken time for the more established supply chain
members to catch up because of the need to not just change strategy but re-engineer the
supply chain to align with this.

8. Conclusion
This paper has revisited the migratory model first put forwards at the start of the 21st century,
considering the extent to which it has influenced academic thinking and evaluating its
continued relevance in a much changed world. While it has received a steady flow of
citations, the majority of these are not directly related to the migratory model. However, there
is continued relevance for a migratory perspective, and in 2015 it is apparent that technology
has enabled a fifth stage to emerge. Supply chains are increasingly customer centric and, as
such, the customer is far more engaged in decisions within the supply chain. This requires
organisations to be more responsive, for which technology can assist. However, there is also
pressure on supply chains as many of the traditional supply chain metrics, such as cost,
remain critical.

Looking forwards, there appears to be a continuing need for research that examines the
longer term evolution of supply chains, understanding the factors that influence this and the
tools used at an operational level to deliver the changing strategy. As highlighted earlier,
established research methods may need to be complemented by those that are less common in
supply chain management research. Another challenge will be the extent to which
manufacturing technologies such as additive manufacturing can redefine supply chain
strategies vis-à-vis where they just replace existing production technologies. Undoubtedly,
such research areas will contribute to the continued development of supply chain
management as a theory.

References
Abney, D. (2014), “The Consumer-led Revolution”, available from
https://longitudes.ups.com/the-consumers-retail-revolution/ (accessed 19 June 2015).
Ahmed, K. (2015), “John Lewis warning over free deliveries”, available from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/30679293 (accessed 19 June 2015).
Anderson, C. (2013), Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Random House, London
Andras, P. (2011), “Research: metrics, quality and management implications”, Research
Evaluation, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp.90-106.
Baines, T.S., Lightfoot, H.W., Benedettini, O. and Kay, J.M. (2009), “The servitization of
manufacturing: A review of the literature and reflection on future challenges”, Journal
of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp 547-567.
Bakker, E., Zheng, J., Knight, L. and Harland, C. (2008), “Putting e-commerce adoption in a
supply chain context”, International Journal of Operations and Production
Management, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 313-330
Baramichai, M., Zimmers Jr., E.W. and Marangos, C.A. (2007), “Agile supply chain
transformation matrix: An integrated tool for creating an agile enterprise”, Supply
Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 334-348
Barnard, M. (1999), “The changing shape of the book: From cultural evolution to
technological revolution”, Cultural Trends, Vol. 9 No. 36, pp. 29-51.
Baye, M.R., de los Santos, B. and Wildenbeest, M.S. (2013), “Searching for physical and
digital media: The evolution of platforms for finding books”, Working Paper 19519,
National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge MA, October 2013.
BIEC (2014), 2012 Book Industry Environmental Trends, available from
http://www.bookcouncil.org/documents/industrytrends.pdf (accessed 30 June 2015).
Borgström, B. and Hertz, S. (2011), “Supply chain strategies: Changes in customer order-
based production”, Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 361-373
Boyer, K.K. and Swink, M.L. (2008), “Empirical Elephants—Why Multiple Methods are
Essential to Quality Research in Operations and Supply Chain Management”, Journal
of Operations Management, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp.338-344
Brynjolfsson, E., Hu, Y.J. and Rahman, M.S. (2013), “Competing the in the age of
omnichannel retailing”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 54 No. 4, pp. 23-29.
Burbidge, J.L. (1961), “The new approach to production”, Production Engineer, Vol. 40, pp.
769-784.
Carvalho, H., Duarte, S. and Machado, V.C. (2011), “Lean, agile, resilient and green:
Divergencies and synergies”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 2 No. 2,
pp. 151-179
Childerhouse, P. and Towill, D.R. (2006), “Enabling seamless market-orientated supply
chains”, International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp.
357 – 370
Christopher, M. (1998), Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Pitman, London.
Christopher, M. and Towill, D.R (2000) “Supply Chain Migration from Lean and Functional
to Agile and Customised”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol.
5 No. 4, pp. 206-213.
Christopher, M. and Towill, D.R. (2001), “An Integrated Model for the Design of Agile
Enterprise”, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management,
Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 235-246.
Cope, B. (2001), “Making and moving books in new ways, from the creator to the
consumer”, in Cope, B. and Mason, D. (Eds) Digital Book Production and Supply
Chain Management, Common Ground, Melbourne, pp. 1-20.
Drake, P.R. and Lee, D.M. (2009), “Component prioritisation for strategic purchasing and the
case study of a South Korean elevator manufacturer”, International Journal of
Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 43, pp. 883-895
Drott, M.C. (1995) “Reexamining the role of conference papers in scholarly communication”,
Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 299-305.
Dües, C.M., Tan, K.H. and Lim, M. (2013), “Green as the new Lean: How to use Lean
practices as a catalyst to greening your supply chain”, Journal of Cleaner Production,
Vol. 40, pp. 93-100
Edwards, J.B., Cullinane, S.L. and McKinnon, A.C. (2008), “Carbon auditing conventional
and online book supply chains: as easy as ABC?”, in Proceedings of the Logistics
Research Network Annual Conference, Liverpool, September, pp. 341-347.
Edwards, J.B., McKinnon, A.C. and Cullinane, S.L. (2010), “Comparative analysis of the
carbon footprints of conventional and online retailing: A ‘last mile’ perspective”,
International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Vol. 40 No.
1/2, pp. 103-123.
Espiner, T. (2015), “Is click-and-collect ‘cannibalising’ retailers?”, available from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33371265 (accessed 20th July 2015)
Fisher, M. (1997), “What is the right supply chain for your product?”, Harvard Business
Review, Vol. 75 No. 2, pp. 105-116.
Fisher, M., Hammond, J.H., Obermeyer, W.R. and Raman, J. (1994), “Making supply meet
demand in an uncertain world”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 3, pp. 83-93.
Forrester, J.W. (1961), Industrial Dynamics, Productivity Press, Cambridge MA.
Godsell, J., Diefenbach, T., Clemmow, C., Towill, D. and Christopher, M. (2011), “Enabling
supply Chain segmentation through demand profiling”, International Journal of
Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 296-314
Harmonzi, A.M. (2001), “Agile manufacturing: The next logical step”, Benchmarking: An
International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 132-143.
Harvey, C., Kelly, A., Morris, H. and Rowlinson, M. (2010) The Association of Business
Schools Academic Journal Quality Guide, Version 4.
Hill, T. (1993), Manufacturing Strategy: Text and Cases, Second Edition, MacMillan Press,
London.
Holman, T. (2009), “Struck by lightning”, Bookseller, October 2009 Supply Chain
Supplement, p18.
Holmström, J. and Partanen, J. (2014) “Digital manufacturing-driven transformations of
service supply chains for complex products”, Supply Chain Management: An
International Journal, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp.421-430
Huang, Y.-Y. and Li, S.-J. (2010), “How to achieve leagility: A case study of a personal
computer original equipment manufacturer in Taiwan”, Journal of Manufacturing
Systems, Vol. 29, pp. 63-70
James, E.L. (2012), Fifty Shades of Grey, Vintage Books, London.
Johansson, H.J., McHugh, P., Pendlebury, A.J. and Wheeler, W.A. III (1993), Business
Process Reengineering: Breakpoint Strategies for Market Dominance, John Wiley and
Sons, Chichester.
Key Note (2014), Book Publishing: Market Reports 2014.
KPMG (1998), “The UK Book Industry: Unlocking the Supply Chain’s Hidden Prize”,
available at www.bic.org.uk/files/ppt/unlocking.ppt (accessed 30th April 2015)
Lee, H, L. and Billington, C. (1994), “Designing products and processes for postponement”,
in Dasu, S. and Eastman, C. (Eds.) Management of Design: Engineering and
Management Perspectives, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston MA, pp. 105-122.
Lyons, A.C. and Ma'aram, A. (2014), “An examination of multi-tier supply chain strategy
alignment in the food industry”, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 52
No. 7, pp. 1911-1925
Mason-Jones, R. and Towill, D.R. (1997), “Information enrichment: designing the supply
chain for competitive advantage”, Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp.137-148.
Mason-Jones, R., Naylor, B. and Towill, D.R. (2000), “Engineering the Leagile Supply
Chain”, International Journal of Agile Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 54-61.
Nagel, R. and Dove R. (1991), 21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy, Iacocca
Institute, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA.
Naim, M. and Gosling J. (2011), “On leanness, agility and leagile supply chains”,
International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 131 No. 1, pp. 342-354.
Narasimhan, R., Swink, M. and Kim, S.W. (2006), “Disentangling leanness and agility: An
empirical investigation”, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 440-
457
Naylor, J.B., Naim, M.M. and Berry, D., (1999), “Leagility: Interfacing the Lean and Agile
Manufacturing Paradigm in the Total Supply Chain”, International Journal of
Production Economics, Vol. 62, pp 107-118.
Nieuwenhuis, P. and Katsifou, E. (2015), “More sustainable automotive production through
understanding the decoupling points in leagile manufacturing”, Journal of Cleaner
Production, In Press
Ohno, T. (1988), Toyota Production System: Beyond large scale production, Productivity
Press, Cambridge MA.
Oloruntoba, R. and Gray, R. (2006), “Humanitarian aid: An agile supply chain?”, Supply
Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 115-120
Pate, A. and Tan, T. (2014), “Reinventing Book Printing: The New Supply Chain”,
Publishers Weekly, 7th March 2014, available at
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/manufacturing/article/61351-reinventing-book-printing-the-new-supply-
chain.html (accessed 30/4/15).
Ramesh, G. and Devadasan, S.R. (2007), “Literature review on the agile manufacturing
criteria”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 182-
201
Reiner, G. and Trcka, M. (2004), “Customized supply chain design: Problems and
alternatives for a production company in the food industry. A simulation based
analysis”, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 89, pp. 217-229
Salimi, N., Bekkers, R. and Frenken, K. (2015) “Does working with industry come at a price?
A study of doctoral candidates’ performance in collaborative vs. non-collaborative
Ph.D. projects”, Technovation, Vol. 41-42, pp. 51-61.
Seuring, S. and Gold, S. (2012), “Conducting content-analysis based literature reviews in
supply chain management”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol.
17 No. 5, pp. 544-555.
Shingo, S. (1989), A Study of the Toyota Production System, Productivity Press, New York.
Soni, G. and Kodali, R. (2009), “Performance value analysis for the justification of the
leagile supply chain”, International Journal of Business Performance Management,
Vol. 11, pp. 96-133
Stead, D. (2015), “Yodel’s New Year resolution”, Logistics and Transport Focus, Vol. 17
No. 3, pp. 36-39.
Sweeney, E. (2013), “Towards a unified definition of supply chain management: The Four
Fundamentals”, International Journal of Applied Logistics, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 30-48
Towill, D.R. (1997), “FORRIDGE - principles of good practice in material flow”. Production
Planning and Control, Vol. 8 No. 7, pp. 622-632.
Towill, D.R. (2010), “Industrial engineering the Toyota Production System”, Journal of
Management History, Vol. 16 No. 3 pp. 327 – 345
Towill, D.R. and Christopher M. (2007), “Do not lean too far – evidence from the first
decade”, International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp.
406-424.
Towill, D.R. and Gosling, J. (2014) “Celebrating 50 years of FORRIDGE”, Production
Planning and Control, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 731-736.
Tuck, C.J., Hague, R.J.M., Ruffo, M., Ransley, M. and Adams, P. (2008), “Rapid
manufacturing facilitated customization”, International Journal of Computer Integrated
Manufacturing, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 245-258.
Van de Ven, A. (2007), Engaged Scholarship: a Guide for Organizational and Social
Research, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Vermaas, L. (2014), “It’s not easy being green”, in Spruit, M. (Ed) Txt: Exploring the
Boundaries of the Book, Leiden University, The Hague, pp. 67-77.
Walker, H. and Jones, N. (2012), “Sustainable supply chain management across the UK
private sector”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 17 No. 1,
pp. 15 – 28
Youn, S., Yang, M.G., Roh, J.J. (2012), “Extending the efficient and responsive supply
chains framework to the green context”, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol.
19 No. 4, pp. 463-480