Agile manufacturing

About agile manufacturing

Agility started in the US in the early 90s following identification that the: number one problem was the lack of management tools to manage the problem of responding to unexpected change the ability to engineer your enterprise to respond well to unexpected change, & ..leverage that ability as a competitive strategy

What is agile manufacturing

According to Gupta and Mittal (1996)( Agile manufacturing: a taxonomy of strategic and technological imperatives) , AM is a business concept that integrates organizations , people and technology into a meaningful unit by deploying advanced information technologies and flexible and nimble organization structures to support highly skilled, knowledgeable and motivated people.

 What is Lean? Lean = Q+C+D (Quality Cost & Delivery) what is Agile ? Agile = (Q+C+D)+F+R where F = Flexibility R=responsiveness Lean concentrates on predictability (then moves on to responsiveness), whereas Agility takes the opposite view to the extreme, i.e. the ability to respond quickly to unexpected demands. Flexibility the ability to adapt quickly to changes in volume of demand . In the design or in delivery schedules, has become a major competitive strategy and a competitive advantage to the firms. This is sometimes called as agile manufacturing

Agile vs lean
Agile manufacturing 1. `Agile, stresses the importance of being highly responsive to meet the `total needs of the customer, Lean manufacturing 1.`Lean implies high productivity and quality, but it does not necessarily imply being responsive.

2. more flexible.
3. Agility as a concept increases the emphasis on speed of response to new market opportunities. 4. Virtual partnerships

2. Not much
3. emphasis is on the elimination of waste.

4. Absence of VP

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.

Typical agile manufacturing model

Agile manufacturing strategies and technologies

(i) strategic planning, (ii) product design, (iii) virtual enterprise , and (iv) automation and Information Technology (IT). Virtual enterprise
A virtual organization is the integration of complementary core competencies distributed among a number of carefully chosen, but real organizations all with similar supply chains focusing on speed to market, cost reduction and quality. Generally, a single organization often may not be able to respond quickly to changing market requirements. Temporary alliances or partnerships based on core competencies of firms will help to improve the flexibility and responsiveness of organizations

 Virtual Enterprises Key idea is that agility is derived by a group of companies forming a virtual enterprise Companies seen as components Virtual Enterprises Collaboration 1. In product design How to find the other component companies: on-line part retrieval,( see http://www.camac.aston.ac.uk/) on-line company specifications (pioneered at Lehigh but rare) working together: software to support global team working CAD/design environments (most CAD systems) groupware & collaborative software; email => IBM QuickR

Responsiveness

flexibility

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