Agile Manufacturing

What will be covered

Introduction
What is Agile Manufacturing
Why do we need to be agile
Key to Agility and Flexibility
Agile Manufacturing in a company
Four Core Concepts
Nuts and Bolts
Interdisciplinary Design
How can we make the transition
Real world example
Summary

Introduction
Manufacturing industry is on the verge of a
major paradigm shift. This shift will take us
away from mass production, way beyond lean
manufacturing, into a world of Agile
Manufacturing

What is Agile Manufacturing?

Agile manufacturing is a method for
manufacturing which combine an
organization, people and technology into an
integrated and coordinated whole.

Why do we need to be agile

Global Competition is intensifying.
Mass markets are fragmenting into niche markets.
Cooperation among companies is becoming
necessary, including companies who are in direct
competition with each other.

Why do we need to be agile cont:

Customers are expecting:

1. Low volume products
2. High quality products
3. Custom products

Very short product life-cycles, development time,

and production lead times are required.
Customers want to treated and individuals

Keys to agility and flexibility

To determine customer needs quickly and continuously
reposition the company against its competitors.
To design things quickly based on those individual needs.
To put them into full scale, quality , production quickly.
To respond to changing volumes and mix quickly.
To respond to a crisis quickly.

Agile manufacturing in a company

Customer-integrated process for designing, manufacturing,
marketing, and supporting all products and services.
Decision making at functional knowledge points not in
centralized management silos
Stable unit costs, no matter what the volume
Flexible Manufacturing-ability to increase or decrease
production volumes at will.

Agile manufacturing in a company

cont.
Easy access to integrated data whether it is customer-driven,
supplier-driven, or product and process-driven
Modular production facilities that can be organized into ever
changing manufacturing nodes.
Data that is rapidly changed into information that is used to
expand knowledge.
Mass customized product verses mass produced product.

Four core concepts

1.
2.
3.
4.

A strategy to become an Agile Manufacturing enterprise.

A strategy to exploit agility to achieve competitive
advantage.
Integration of organization, people and technology into a
coordinated interdependent system which is a competitive
advantage.
An interdisciplinary design methodology to achieve the
integration of Organization, people and technology.

Nuts and Bolts

Enriching the customer

1. Replace large centralized with distributed clusters of
mini-assembly plants located near customers.

Cooperating to enhance competition.

1. Internalcross-functional teams, empowerment.
2. Externalmanaging the supply chain.

Nuts and Bolts

Organizing to manage change and uncertainty

1. Rapid reconfiguration of plant and facilities.
2. Rapid decision making-shallow empowered.

Leveraging people and information.

1. Distribution of authority, resources, and rewards.

Interdisciplinary Design
Interdisciplinary design will form the basis of designing
Agile Manufacturing systems in the new knowledge intensive
era.
Interdisciplinary design is one of the most important
challenges to that managers and systems designers and
integrators will face in the years ahead, it leads us to new
approaches and new ways of working and of thinking.

Interdisciplinary Design
To successfully adopt an interdisciplinary design
method, we need to:
Challenge our accepted design strategies and
develop new and better approaches.
Question our established and cherished beliefs and
theories, and develop new ones to replace those that
know longer have any validity.

Interdisciplinary Design
Consider how we address organization, people and
technology, and other issues in the design of manufacturing
systems, so we can have systems that are better for
performance, better for the environment, and better for the
people .
Go beyond the automation paradigm of the industrial era, to
use technology in a way that makes human skill, knowledge,
and intelligence more effective and productive, and that
allows us to tap into the creativity and talent of all people.

transition to Agile manufacturing?

Make the break with the things that are wrong
with the way we do things today.
Examine and define the underlying conceptual
framework on which Agile Manufacturing
enterprises will be built.

Making the transition cont.

Explore and understand the nature of the mass
production paradigm and the nature of the cultural
and methodological difficulties involved in the
transition to Agile Manufacturing.
Define a methodology for designing a 21st century
manufacturing enterprise.

Real world example:

The Industry: Japanese car makers

The goal: To produce the three day car,
(three days from customer order for a
customized car to dealer delivery)

Real world ex. Cont.

The Challenges:

The challenges:
1. Break dependency on scale and economies of scale
(reducing setup costs in key).
2. Produce vehicles in low volumes at a reasonable cost.
3. Guarantee the three day car.
4. Replace large centralized with distributed clusters of
mini-assembly plants located near customers.
5. Be able to reconfigure components in many different
ways.

Real world ex. Cont.

The Challenges:
1. Make work stimulating.
2. Turn the customer into a prosumer,; the idea is that
the customer will take an active role in the product
design by, for example, configuring options at a
computer in a dealer showroom.
3. Streamline ordering systems and establish close
relationships with suppliers.
4. Manage the massive volumes of data generated by the
production system so as to be able to analyze that data
quickly and agilely

Summary
Agile Manufacturing enterprises will be capable of rapidly
responding to changes in customer demand. They will be able to
take advantage of the windows of opportunities that appear in the
market place. With Agile Manufacturing we will be able to develop
new ways of interacting with customers and suppliers. Our
customers will not only be able to gain access to our products and
services, but will also be able to easily assess and exploit
competencies, so enabling them to use these competencies to
achieve the things that they are seeking. (5)