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This article investigates how the healthcare sector can reorganize its procurement network to better balance its resilience and cost-minimization objectives.

A single case study was conducted on the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in the Quebec public healthcare network. Interviews were conducted with stakeholders from the supply chain management (SCM) departments at eight public healthcare institutions.

Two major challenges in the early months of the pandemic impacted the development of resilience in the healthcare network. First, peripheral actors’ decisions, which orient procurement objectives, limited the deployment of resilience measures in the supply chain (SC). Second, SC resilience included hundreds of products other than PPE that are critical to the delivery of care. The article illustrates the challenges of SCR, which will inevitably be accompanied by additional costs when purchasing in the public healthcare sector is often focused on the lowest price.

Drawing from the network perspective model, this article examines the actions of Quebec supply network stakeholders through the three phases of SCR: anticipation, response to disruption, and recovery. Finally, the article suggests that decision-makers remove the cost of resilience measures from the purchase price of products, in order to maintain these measures over the long term.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on lean management and lean six sigma (LM/LSS) in local government organizations (LGOs).

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to extract the most relevant academic publications on LM/LSS in LGOs. ProQuest, Web of Science and Engineering Village were used to obtain the publication set. Studies were then analyzed based on author characteristics, research design characteristics and content characteristics.

The SLR yielded 53 academic publications. The primary finding is that this research area has recently received an increase in attention within these types of organizations. Although this research area attracts new scholars every year, there remains insufficient collaboration across different research groups. Research methods, outcomes and future research areas were also investigated to comprehensively evaluate the literature and specify new research opportunities.

Although the SLR is a rigorous research methodology used to gather relevant publications, it is limited to the chosen information sources (i.e. platforms) to obtain the publications. Therefore, the researchers used multiple sources to maximize the likelihood of capturing publications related to this topic.

The insights presented here provide a foundational reference for researchers interested in investigating and exploring future research opportunities associated with LM/LSS in LGOs.

This study adds value to the research community through its detailed characterization and analysis of the existing research literature on LM/LSS within LGOs, an area that remains largely unexplored in the academic literature. By providing a rigorous understanding of the current status of this research area, this work responds to a notable gap. The review of the existing literature suggests that this effort represents the first comprehensive examination of the research literature on the evolution of LM/LSS, specifically focusing on LGOs as the primary application unit of interest.