Everyone wants to be lean and mean these days, and supply chain professionals are no exception. In a poll taken at the SAP Logistics and Supply Chain Management 2007 Conference this spring, almost half of the 160 executives surveyed identified "lean" initiatives as one of their top supply chain priorities. The survey was conducted by E2open, a supply chain management software specialist.

Along with "lean" initiatives (which were cited by 48 percent of the survey participants), other common responses included operational improvement programs (45 percent) and globalization (39 percent).