Agile Manufacturing

Seminar’11

Semi
nar report

AGILE MANUFACTURING

Submitted by - Under the

guidance of -
SUSHIL KUMAR MR.A.K.SOOD
Roll No: - 1607
ASS.Professor
Manufacturing Engineering Dept. of
Manufacturing
B.Tech (4th year)

Dept of ME 1
sushil kumar chaurasia
Agile Manufacturing
Seminar’11

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar report

entitled “agile manufacturing ” submitted by Mr. sushil kumar ,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree
of BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY in Manufacturing Engineering
is a bonafide seminar work carried out by him under my guidance. In
my opinion the work fulfils the requirements for which it is being
submitted.

Place: MR.A.K.SOOD
Date: Ass.Professor

Dept. of Foundry

Dept of ME 2
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Agile Manufacturing
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I sincerely acknowledge the help and

guidance I received from MR.A.K.SOOD without which it would have
been difficult to complete this seminar work. His constant
encouragement and words of motivation have been a source of
inspiration for me. I express my sincere gratitude to him.

I also express my gratitude to the library

staffs who have helped me from time to time as and when required.

SUSHIL KUMAR

B.Tech 4th yr. (manufacturing engg.)

Dept of ME 3
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Agile Manufacturing
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The world as a whole is now adjusting itself to the competitive realities of

a new set of competitive standards. In the old economy competitive success was
based almost exclusively on the ability to improve productivity .In the new
economy, organization and nations compete in quality, variety, customization, timely
response etc. So manufactures must be able to develop and produce customized
products rapidly to meet ever changing customer needs to be ahead of others.

Methods to meet these requirements are the basics of agile engineering.

Agile Engineering or Manufacturing is a new concept of management originating
from USA aimed at carving a new path for business enterprises. The emphasis is to
make the organization quick shift in style of working to adopt the changes in market
environment in order to remain the business leader ahead of competitors. Thus the
ability to use and exploit a fundamental resource-knowledge and imagination is the
impetus behind agile organizations.

Dept of ME 4
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1.1 HOW DO WE GET TO WHERE WE ARE TODAY?

The industrial revolution led to mass production practices and the

scientific definition of cost accounting system. That period represented seller’s
market, where demand was greater than capacity. Price was based on the cost of
production and expected profit. The fixed of capital was amortized for a long period
of time, but variable costs were high and needed to be managed. The solution was
simple –treat manufacturing as a cost driver by focusing on local optimization,
breaking down to tasks into small simple steps and producing high volumes of
standard products at the lowest possible cost. Consequently labor was de-skilled.

Dept of ME 5
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Agile Manufacturing
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The computer revolution dramatically changed the market characteristic.

Today it’s the buyer’s market where capacity is higher than demand. Price is dictated
by the market and is not based on producer’s expected profit. Manufactures must
develop a balance between the external and internal measures. Their focus is
changing to global optimization from local optimization by determining what
customers want and delivering the right product.

Thus focus and advances in technology and product life which together
with the high cost of capital makes product time to market are of the major business
driven for many industries. This increasingly shorted whole resulted in the need for
agility.

The Japanese who dominated the market at the middle of the 20 th century
had developed their own paradigm called “LEAN MANUFACTURING” .As the
customers were shifting towards the Japanese the US introduced “AGILE
ENGINEERING” IN 1991 so as to compete with them.

Dept of ME 6
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CHAPTER II
AGILE ENGINEERING-CONCEPT
AND PHILOSOPHY

Peter Drucker wrote “There is only one valid definition of business

purpose, to create a satisfied customer who determines what the business enterprise
has two and only two basic functions: marketing and innovation.

Success globally means faster reach to market, sharper response to

customer needs and exploiting the resources efficiently to develop the product. The
emphasis is to make the organization quick, swift and agile in catching customer’s
requirements and to treat it to be very purpose of business. It requires a holistic
business approach and reorganizing the organizational structure to make it cross
functional and enabling.

2.1 HOLISTIC APPROACH

“Winners do not do different things, but they do things differently”

In order to achieve agility in a system it is necessary to break the
fragmented organizational legacy and meaningful only in the context of the whole
effort .It must be compatible on the company wide basis .An individual’s effort to
excel in his job or a single department doing its best within its domain is no more
considered enough. Building up a holistic organization emphasizes not on parts but
as whole. Each part of the organization must continuously adjust and recalibrate its
actions to accommodate the needs and requirements of the whole. Holistic system of
management can be thought of as the foundation of building agile organization to be
capable of quickly responding to fast changes whether internal or external, simple or
complex.

Dept of ME 7
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2.2 CROSS FUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT

Communication gap across organizational boundaries was still remaining

problem number one of the industry .It is mainly due to organizational legacy that
divide a company into less and less co-operative parts. And in the absence of cross-
boundary communication, management of complex process like new product
development or increasing market share etc suffers or may require extraordinary
efforts or resource .The solution to the problem is found out to be agile engineering
by adopting cross-functional system of management

The agility of an organization depends on cross management

communication. Company wide system reorganization was put into effect.
Executives are assigned multiple and cross functional problems. This helps in
sharing of ideas and concepts and hence enhancing company wide coordination.

The unique characteristics of cross-functional system can be summarized

as below
1. Company wide cross department co-operation and communication
2. Focus on strategic core processes as a basis for achieving competitive results
and profitability.

2.3 HIGH SENSITIVITY

Agile organizations should be sensitive enough to pick feeble signal of

changes and be responsive enough to take corrective measures instantaneously. It
should be in a state of continuous instability rather than being in a static equilibrium.
This agility will come out of this vibrant and dynamic state which instead of causing
a destabilizing effect on the system would provide ability to quickly perceive and
adapt the market needs, technology, opportunities, new employee competencies,
competitive threats or new regulations.

Dept of ME 8
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2.4 INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL AGILITY

Internal agility concerns itself with the ability to react quickly to changes
in rapidly changing products, processes and the physical environment of the factory.
External agility is something more and more companies are dealing with by focusing
on their on competitors and forming partnerships with other suppliers to meet overall
customer needs.

The commercial and legal risks are not widely understood and most of the
interest in “partnerships building” has been based on forming long term commercial
relationship.

Dept of ME 9
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CHAPTER III
AGILITY: A POPULAR PARADIGM
WITHIN MANUFACTURING

The paradigm of mass production has first shifted to lean manufacturing

and now to Agile Engineering to respond rapidly to change in customer demand.
This radical approach challenges some fundamental operational issues, producing
high-volume item to cater for the larger segment of the market which also
accommodates customers who went one-off, customized products without
sacrificing on lead time and cost. A shift towards an agile enterprise will require
manufacturing process to be well placed to exploit opportunities in a climate of
uncertainty, unpredictability and highly turbulent market conditions.

Agile manufacturing rests upon three supporting pillars.

1. Learning in Agile organization.

2. Skilled people-Role of HRD.
3. Intelligent and flexible manufacturing technology.

3.1. LEARNING IN AGILE ORGANIZATIONS

Management is all about acts to achieve goals. Learning is the key to

achieve these goals. Learning is a process which is inevitable to all the organizations
either deliberately or without any focused effort.

3.1.1 ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING

The organizational learning can be termed as increasing capacity of an

organization to take effective actions. Organizational learning is complex, as it is a
large collection of diverse individuals.

Dept of ME 10
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Primary source of individual learning is through experimental learning is through

experimental learning as shown below.

DO

REFLECT

DECIDE

Fig 3(A)

The above cycle gets modified in the case of organizational learning as follows.

3.1.2 LINKAGE OF LEARNING WITH PERFORMANCE

“Learning without thought is labor lost and thought without learning is

perilous” Knowledge by itself produces by itself produces nothing .It can become
more productive only when it is integrated into a task. And that is why knowledge
society of organization.

Learning curve is defined as empirical relationships between the numbers

of units produced and the numbers of labor hours required to producing them. The
average labor hours will come down as units produced goes up as shown below.
The only expertise these days fast changes is the “expertise to garner expertise.”

Dept of ME 11
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3.2 ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN AGILE

MANUFACTURING-A CASE STUDY

A mid-sized engineering consulting firm uses a web based optimization

solution to give employees more options for self-service and increase the
productivity of its human resource staff.

3.2.1 THE CHALLENGE

Agile Engineering a mid-sized consulting a mid size consulting firm faced

a large backlog of opportunities for new projects but was struggling to build an
adequate work force to handle the work load. From bringing new hires on broad, to
keep company needed to enhance its workforce management tools and processes.

3.2.2 THE SOLUTION

Agile Engineering launched a work force optimization solution using the

internet to advantage to give employees quick access to the information they needed
to their jobs and to simplify and enhance a wide range of human resource activities.
Employees themselves now can complete processes that are required a phone call or
letter to human resources –with a turn around of several days in minutes.

Dept of ME 12
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Fig .3(B)

3.2.3 THE STRATEGY AND BENEFITS

The work force optimization strategy for Agile centered on

 Communications: Through a new company wide intranet, Agile Engineering
gave employees a single, web based window into their company policies,
directories etc.Making training available on line enabled employees to improve
their skills at their convenience, without costly travel to the headquarters and
without disrupting normal work schedules. This helped to respond more quickly
to problems and opportunities.
 Transaction related solutions: Agile’s engineers work in three remote sites and
frequently from their homes or customer sites. The workforce optimization
solution eliminates the isolation of these remote employees by allowing them to
use any web connection to update their benefits choices, report expenses and
complete performance reviews at their convenience.
 Strategic HR activities: The work force optimization solution provided human
resources with new tools to finding and hiring skilled employees. Using internet
agile was able to reach candidates all over the world.

3.2.4 RESULTS

1. Reduced Costs: Agile saw dramatic reductions calls to HR staff about routine
matters. Online training services helped reduce travel and facilities cost. The
firm also reduced paperwork and costly error in tasks such as expense reporting,
benefits, adjustments and hiring.
2. Empowered Employees: Employees on the Agile network can take control of
their careers and benefits information by receiving and manipulating their
personal employment records on line, from the office or home.
3. Improved Productivity: With the flexibility to find the needed information in one
place, available at anytime anywhere, Agile employees can focus on their core
activities. For HR,workforce optimization solution reduce routine task and allow

Dept of ME 13
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more time for finding, hiring and retaining the best possible employees. This
scenario keeps the company competitive, reduces cost and increases profitability.

3.3 INTELLIGENT AND FLEXIBILE MANUFACTURING

TECHNOLOGY –AGILITY IN AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS

With the Indian automobile industry now open to global players,

competition has set in and the customer has a wide choice now. The mechatronics
application in automotives has revolutionized the automobile industries. Computers
are the electronic devices that stores data, manipulate them through arithmetic and
logical operations and an output according to the instructions already given to it.

3.3.1 FUNCTIONS OF MECHATRONICS IN AUTOMOBILES

A single microprocessor in an automobile may do the following

1. Carburetor/Fuel injection control
2. Spark timings
3. Idle speed of the engine
4. Cruise control
5. Air management
6. Exhaust control
7. Transmission control
8. Instrumental panel display
9. Self-diagnosis of the system
10. Passenger safety aspects.

The brain behind all these functions is a small digital computer which
contains the logic for the entire system.

Dept of ME 14
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CHAPTER IV
AGILE AND LEAN MANUFACTURING
ADVANTAGES OF AGILE

4.1 COMPARISION

The two concepts are more or less same in certain areas.

PRINIPLES AGILE LEAN

Delivering values to customer High High
Being ready for change Yes Yes

Valuing human knowledge and High High

skills
Forming virtual relationships Short and flexible Long and rigid
Table 1

4.2 ADVANTAGES OF AGILE ENGINEERING

1. The first is the change from standardization to post standardization .Industrial

society was characterized by high volume production of small variety of items.
An information society however is capable of small production runs of multiple
items which match individual needs.
2. The second is the shift from specialization to collaboration, with many aspects of
society becoming increasingly composite and multidisciplinary.
3. The third is the shift from constraints of time and place.
4. The fourth is the trend away from concentration and diversification.
5. From centralization to decentralization
6. Finally leading to sustainability in manufacturing

Dept of ME 15
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION

The new economy requires management technologies, work force that are
flexible and roboust, agile engineering. The new markets standards would not have
been possible without an equally new role for technology. Thus agile manufacturing
techniques has fully exploited the flexible new technology, by using it in conjunction
with equally flexible workforce and organizational formats, have raised the level of
competition and increased the range of competitive standards.

Dept of ME 16
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REFERENCES

1. www.agilesolutions .com
2. www.mit. org
3. Conferences on Agile Engineering
4. Daniel Whitney, “Agile Pathfinders –A Progress Report”, MIT Press, 1995
5. www.agile.com

Dept of ME 17
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