<p>In the current competitive and rapidly changing market landscape, enhancing supply chain performance is crucial for achieving operational excellence and long-term sustainability. Lean techniques have emerged as a strategic methodology to eradicate waste, optimize operations, and provide superior customer value. Evaluating the efficacy of lean implementation presents considerable hurdles due to several, sometimes contradictory, performance metrics and the intrinsic uncertainty in expert assessments. The study employs a hybrid Fuzzy AHP–Fuzzy VIKOR framework to evaluate and prioritize lean supply chain initiatives, where Fuzzy AHP is applied to derive uncertainty-adjusted criteria weights, and Fuzzy VIKOR is used to obtain a compromise ranking of alternative strategies under imprecise expert judgment. The key performance indicators (KPIs) used in the model were established in collaboration with industry experts and include more than conventional financial measurements. The suggested methodology assesses six essential KPIs: design quality, conformity quality, information flow quality, material flow quality, relationship quality, and overall competitive capability. Fuzzy logic is used to tackle the ambiguity and subjectivity present in expert evaluations, whilst the VIKOR technique facilitates the discovery of compromise solutions and the rating of different supply chain methods during lean implementation. According to the statistics, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is the most prominent lean tool under the selected KPIs. A sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the robustness and validity of the findings. The results indicate that the integrated Fuzzy VIKOR-based model offers a systematic, transparent, and efficient method for assessing and prioritizing supply chain strategies, promoting ongoing improvement and effective lean transformation.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>