Agile manufacturing in practice ‐ Application of a methodology

Emerald - Tập 21 Số 5/6 - Trang 772-794 - 2001
H. Sharifi1, Z. Zhang2
1Manufacturing Engineering and Industrial Management, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
2School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Exeter, UK

Tóm tắt

An evolutionary transformation of business environment, with change as a main characteristic, is taking place. Manufacturing companies, even those operating in relatively stable conditions with good market positions, are facing rapid and often unanticipated changes in their business environment. Agile manufacturing is proposed in response to the circumstances as a solution and is perceived as a vital characteristic that manufacturing companies need to have in order to maintain their competitive advantages in the new order of world business. Each company will respond in a specific and different way to the changing circumstances by deploying its own agile characteristics. Agility in manufacturing may be achieved through the implementation and integration of appropriate practices which provide the required abilities for a company to respond properly to changes. Based on this concept, a methodology for achieving agility in manufacturing organisations is developed. The methodology is applied in two manufacturing companies and data collected from the applications are used to validate the methodology. This paper provides a brief summary of the methodology and details its implementation and validation in the two case study companies. Practices are proposed to support the achievement of agility in the two organisations.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Booth, R. (1996), “Agile manufacturing”, Engineering Management Journal, April, pp.105‐12. Dove, R. (1994‐1996), “Agile and otherwise”, series of articles on agile manufacturing, Production Magazine, November to July. Drucker, P.F. (1968), “Comeback of the entrepreneur”, Management Today, April, pp. 23‐30. Goldman, S.L., Nagel, R.N. and Preiss, K. (1995), Agile Competitors and Virtual Organisation; Strategy for Enriching the Customer, Van Nostrand, Rinehold, New York, NY. Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C.K. (1994), “Competing for the future”, Harvard Business Review, July‐August, pp. 122‐8. Iacocca Institute (1991), 21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy, An Industry‐led View, Vol. 1, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. James‐Moore, S.M.R. (1996), “Agility is easy, but effective agility is not”, Proceedings of Agile Manufacturing Colloquium, IEE, London, March, pp. 3/1‐3/3. Kidd, P.T. (1995), Agile Manufacturing, Forging New Frontiers, Addison‐Wesley, London. Montgomery, J.C. and Levine L.O. (1996), The Transition to Agile Manufacturing – Staying Flexible for Competitive Advantage, ASQC, Milwaukee, WI. Preiss, K. (1997), “A systems perspective of lean and agile manufacturing”, Agility and Global Competition, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 57‐72. Sharifi, H. and Zhang Z. (1998a), “A methodology for achieving agility in manufacturing organisations, an introduction”, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 62 No. 1‐2, pp. 7‐22. Sharifi, H. and Zhang, Z. (1998b), “Enabling practices assisting achievement of agile manufacturing”, Proceedings of the Sixth IASTED International Conference, Robotics and Manufacturing, July 26‐31, Banff. Small, A.W. and Downey, A.E., (1996), “Orchestrating multiple changes: a framework for managing concurrent changes of varied type and scope”, Proceedings of IEMC 1996 Conference on Managing Virtual Enterprise, Canada, pp. 627‐34. Thompson, J. (1967), Organisation in Action, McGraw‐Hill, New York, NY. Youssef, M.A. (1992), “Agile manufacturing: a necessary condition for competing in global markets”, Industrial Engineering, December, pp. 18‐20. Zhang, Z. and Sharifi, H. (2000), “A methodology for achieving agility in manufacturing organisations”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 496‐512.
Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Emerald

Tập 21 Số 5/6

772-794

Thông tin tác giả