Agile manufacturing: a management and operational framework

Manufacturing companies are now operating in fast-moving commercial environ ments where unanticipated threats and opportunities are the order of the da y. Agile manufacturing in such environments means understanding the environ ment and being flexible, cost effective and productive with consistent high quality. Each company will respond in a different way to deploy its own ag ile characteristics. This paper describes research that tackles the problem of identifying what characteristics constitute agile manufacture and propo ses a framework for evaluating and developing agile manufacturing. Manufact uring enterprises involve people, organization, technology, processes and i nformation, and no commonly accepted practical reference framework exists t o investigate, analyse and evaluate the ability to deal with change. The re search is based on a wide-ranging review of agile manufacture and manufactu ring architectures. From this review, a conceptual agile manufacturing mode l was developed and used in a study of 18 manufacturing companies. Subseque ntly, a framework for analysing and developing a company's agile characteri stics is described. The paper concludes by discussing three case studies in detail and proposing the key characteristics of agile manufacturing.