Agile Manufacturing the Drivers Concepts and Attributes

Int. J. Production Economics 62 (1999) 33}43

Agile manufacturing:The drivers, concepts and attributes

Y.Y. Yusuf!, M. Sarhadi", A. Gunasekaran#,*

!Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, UK"Department of Manufacturing and Engineering Systems, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

#Department of Management, University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth, MA 02747, USA

Abstract

Agile manufacturing, a recently popularised concept, has been advocated as the 21st century manufacturing paradigm.It is seen as the winning strategy to be adopted by manufacturers bracing themselves for dramatic performanceenhancements to become national and international leaders in an increasingly competitive market of fast changingcustomer requirements. This paper identi"es the drivers of agility and discusses the portfolio of competitive advantagesthat have emerged over time as a result of the changing requirements of manufacturing. The need to achieve thecompetitive advantages of manufacturing in synergy and without trade-o!s is fundamental to the agile paradigm. Tofurther the understanding of agility, this paper reviews the meaning of agility from di!erent perspectives and suggestsa comprehensive de"nition which can be adopted as a working de"nition by practitioners. Four underlining concepts ofagility has emerged from the working de"nition and the paper presents a representation of these concepts and theirinteractions. Finally, the paper highlights some of the key enablers of agility and identi"es potential future researchdirections. ( 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Agility; Drivers; Concepts; Attributes; Enablers

1. Introduction

There is an increasing recognition that agilemanufacturing is a necessary condition for com-petitiveness. The original concept was popularisedin 1991 by a group of scholars at Iaccoca Instituteof Lehigh University in USA, and it is gainingcurrency among practitioners and academics alike,as the next battle ground for global competition inthe face of shrinking conventional markets andfading national barriers. The concept owes a lot to

*Corresponding author: Tel.: #1 508 999-9187; fax: #1 508999-8776; e-mail: [email protected]

advances in communication technology and pre-vious paradigms of manufacturing, yet it is morethan a hybrid construct of technology and any pre-vious method of production. It advocates a holistic,rather than a sub-optimal, approach to manufactur-ing. The concept is at the moment a vision andcurrently being re"ned to further its understanding.

There is yet no company that is truly agile in thesense of having acquired all the essential character-istics identi"ed in the growing body of literature onagile manufacturing. There are important issuesand questions that need to be addressed to under-stand how agile manufacturing might be achievedwith clarity of purpose, focus and goals.

0925-5273/99/$ - see front matter ( 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 9 2 5 - 5 2 7 3 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 2 1 9 - 9

This paper presents the genesis of the agilemanufacturing concept, and examines the manufac-turing imperatives and potential competitive ad-vantages that are the driving forces behind agility.The paper also reviews de"nitions of agile manu-facturing and proposes a comprehensive de"nitionembracing the competitive foundations of agilityand the key concepts of agile manufacturing. In sodoing, the paper attempts to address some of thebasic requirements for achieving agility. Finally,the paper presents some of the problems to contendwith if agility is to be of long-term bene"ts forprospective agile companies.

2. The 21st century manufacturing paradigm

Agility, as a concept in manufacturing, wascoined by a group of researchers at Iaccoca Insti-tute, Lehigh University, in 1991 [1] to describe thepractices observed and considered as importantaspects of manufacturing during their investigation.The group involved many of the senior executivesof US companies and the study culminated intoa two volume report conveying an industry-ledvision for a possible profound shift in manufactur-ing paradigm.

The report was, mainly, on how USA could re-gain its pre-eminence in manufacturing. It de-scribed initiatives in USA, Western Europe andJapan aimed at creating an industrial climate thatwill ensure competitiveness in the emerging globalmanufacturing order. The agile manufacturingparadigm was recommended as holding the poten-tial, if adopted, for the USA to resume a leadingrole in manufacturing. Included in the report isa view of agile manufacturing enterprise, compo-nents, infrastructure and operating mechanisms. Italso identi"ed competitive foundation, character-istics, elements and enabling subsystems of agility.The report was a pioneering work and was wellreceived by academics, practitioners and govern-ment o$cials.

However, Burgess [2] argues that agility was yetill-de"ned and more work needed to be done tore"ne the concept. For example, the concept ofagility as expounded in the report lacked solidgrounding in management theory. The work also

did not take account of the di!erences betweenorganisations, for example, incorporate culture orphilosophy.

3. The drivers of agility

The main driving force behind agility is change.Manufacturing has tended toward gradual changeand adjustment in response to the prevailing mar-ket circumstances. In this section the changingmanufacturing requirements that have culminatedin a broad spectrum of competitive criteria will bebrie#y reviewed. Intimate understanding of the re-quirements of modern manufacturing is importantin order to set a proper agenda for strategy imple-mentation. The issues discussed below relate toautomation and price/cost consideration, wideningcustomer choice and expectation, competitive pri-orities, integration and proactivity and achievingmanufacturing requirements in synergy.

3.1. Automation and price/cost consideration

As implied above, the pressure on manufacturinghas always been dictated by the market. The postWorld War II period was characterised by relative-ly high demand and an inability to supply. Theincrease in demand after the war created extendedbacklogs of customer orders which served as "rmorders on which material planning could be based[3]. Quality and speed were not of considerablesigni"cance as consumers were scrambling for theavailable products on o!er. Price was the dominantfactor that determined customers preferences [4].This encouraged massive automation of produc-tion processes with resultant mass production ofgoods. The single most important objective ofmanufacturing was mass production of goods atlower prices. The automation was rigid and #exibil-ity was constrained.

3.2. Widening customer choice and expectation

The changing market and shift in customer pref-erences in favour of quality gave birth to the 1980s'

34 Y.Y. Yusuf et al./Int. J. Production Economics 62 (1999) 33}43

quality crusade. This led to aggressive and unprece-dented focus on quality while maintaining competi-tive price. Increasing customer expectation in theform of strong taste for quality helped intensify theattention devoted to product quality initiatives.Pursuit of quality by manufacturers was also comp-lemented by the army of researchers and consul-tants who popularised quality related conceptssuch as total quality management (TQM), statist-ical process control (SPC), and quality functiondeployment (QFD).

3.3. Competing priorities

Several criteria for competitiveness haveemerged within the "rst half of the 1990s. Thesecompetitive priorities include responsiveness, newproduct introduction, delivery, #exibility, quality,concern for the environment and internationalcompetitiveness. The market place has turned into`battle"eldsa. An archetypal scramble for marketwas demonstrated by sti! competition betweenYamaha and Honda for Japanese market share inthe 1980s. [5].

3.4. Integration and proactivity

The long established paradigm of manufacturingmanagement is largely reactive. In a highly com-petitive market manufacturers must be able to actproactively. A proactive manufacturer will inte-grate with customers and help identify their prob-lems and requirements and also acquire capabilitiesjust ahead of need [6,7]. In this way, proactivityo!ers strategic advantage for competing in the tur-bulence of the global market. The strategic capabil-ities a!orded by proactivity is strongly dependentupon the integration and co-ordination in the en-terprise that the strategic manufacturing systemsmust be e$ciently integrated and coordinated [7].

3.5. Achieving manufacturing requirements in synergy

From the foregoing discussion it is apparent thatone competitive thrust cannot win the battle for

any company. The importance of speed cannot beoverstated. The #exibility of production machineryas well as employees and the organisation are re-quired for a corporate-wide #exible strategy. Mair[8] espouses the concept of `#exifactorya and ar-gues that it is a vehicle for transcending micro-#exibility and realising an overall #exible corporatestrategy. Though quality is now an order quali"errather than an order winner, it remains important.To remain competitive, manufacturers are requiredto produce products at lower cost, high quality andwith decreasing lead time. In addition, they mustremain proactive and innovative.

A successful company must therefore acquire thecapability to achieve and explore the competitiveadvantage in synergy. Integration both of a tech-nical and social nature, of technology, machinery,functions, strategies, people and management, liesat the foundation of these competitive capabilities.The competitive advantage will have to be achievedusing the best resources available to an organisa-tion or a group of organisations.

A common theme that runs through the scenariodepicted above is change. Successful organisationsmust be able to foresee, adapt and respond tochange using tactical initiatives to achieve strategicobjectives. It is important to engage in creativelyinitiating change and to become pro"cient in it.Survivors of the current competitive storm arethose organisations that use their pro"ciency inchange as a lever to outperform their competitors[9].

4. What is agile manufacturing?

Since the publication of the Iacocca report,many publications on agility have appeared, inbook forms [10,11], trade magazines [12}15]and academic journals [2,5,16,17]. As a markof the newness of the concept, every publicationattempts to de"ne and explain agility. Agile manu-facturing has been de"ned with respect to the agileenterprise, products, workforce, capabilities andthe environment that gives impetus to the develop-ment of agile paradigm. The main points of thede"nition of various authors may be summarised asfollow:

Y.Y. Yusuf et al./Int. J. Production Economics 62 (1999) 33}43 35

f High quality and highly customised products[9,11,18,19].

f Products and services with high information andvalue-adding content [9,10].

f Mobilisation of core competencies [9,11].f Responsiveness to social and environmental

issues [9}11].f Synthesis of diverse technologies [2,11].f Response to change and uncertainty [9,10,12].f Intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise integration

[20,11,21,22].

4.1. The scope of agility

Youssef [23] argues that agility should not beequated just with the speed of doing things, for itgoes beyond speed and it requires massive struc-tural and infrastructural changes. Equating agilemanufacturing with speed of response or #exibilityis a narrow understanding of what constitutes agil-ity. Although agility incorporates speed and #exib-ility, according to Kidd [11], it is much more thanthat. Agility is a synthesised use of the developedand well-known technologies and methods ofmanufacturing. That is, it is mutually compatiblewith Lean Manufacturing, CIM, TQM, MRPII,BPR, Employee Empowerment, and OPT. Thisview is corroborated by Goldman and Nagel [9].They contended that agile manufacturing `assimi-lates the full range of #exible production technolo-gies, along with the lessons learned from totalquality management, &just-in-time' production and&lean' productiona.

4.2. Agility dexned in terms of outcomes

Agility has been de"ned, in terms of outcomes, as`dynamic, context speci"c, aggressively change em-bracing and growth oriented2succeeding2win-ning pro"ts, market share and customersa [10]. Inother words, agility is the ability of a business togrow in a competitive market of continuous andunanticipated change, to respond quickly to rap-idly changing markets driven by customer-basedvaluing of products and services [5,24]. By focusingon the output, Gehani [25] asserted that `an agile

organisation can quickly satisfy customer orders;can introduce new products frequently in a timelymanner; and can even get in and out of its strategicalliances speedilya. However, a further insights intoagility could be gained by looking at the speci"cand operational issues.

4.3. Agility in terms of operationalisation

According to Kidd [11], to operationalise agility,it can be de"ned as `the synthesis of a number ofenterprises that each have some core skills or com-petencies which they bring to a joint venturingoperation2a thus enabling the cooperative enter-prises to adapt and respond quickly to changingcustomer requirements. A fairly speci"c and suc-cinct de"nition of agility has been proposed byKumar and Motwani [16]: `2ability to acceleratethe activities on critical path and2time-basedcompetitivenessa. In other words agile organisa-tions are able to compete on the basis of time-compression.

4.4. Comprehensive dexnition of agility

The proponents of agility at Iaccoca Institute ofLehigh University (USA) have de"ned it as [23]:`2A manufacturing system with extraordinarycapabilities (Internal capabilities: hard and softtechnologies, human resources, educated manage-ment, information) to meet the rapidly changingneeds of the marketplace (speed, #exibility, cus-tomers, competitors, suppliers, infrastructure, re-sponsiveness). A system that shifts quickly (speed,and responsiveness) among product models or be-tween product lines (#exibility), ideally in real-timeresponse to customer demand (customer needs andwants)a. This de"nition embraces the concepts re-#ected in the model of agile manufacturing pro-posed by Youssef [21]. The model de"neda framework for agility through representation ofthe interactions between the manufacturer, cus-tomers, suppliers and the basis for competition inthe agile paradigm.

Obviously, di!erent facets of agility have beenemphasised by various authors and this has lead to


varied views re#ected in the literature. These de"ni-tions should be considered simultaneously in orderto gain a better understanding of what constituteagility. Taking all the de"nitions together, it ap-pears agile manufacturing is indeed a complexpackage, the content of which has not yet pen-etrated the collective consciousness of researchersand practitioners alike.

In the light of the growing number of literatureon agility, and the breadth of interest in it, a morecomprehensive de"nition is being suggested in thispaper.`Agility is the successful exploration of competi-

tive bases (speed, #exibility, innovation proactivity,quality and pro"tability) through the integration ofrecon"gurable resources and best practices ina knowledge-rich environment to provide cus-tomer-driven products and services in a fast chang-ing market environmenta.

This de"nition shares some properties withthe earlier de"nitions but it is di!erent in fourrespects:

f Firstly, it is comprehensive in that it de"nesagility in terms of input, operationalisation andoutput. It therefore embodies, and properly ex-presses, the concept of agility as a system. This isa systematic approach that will enable practi-tioners to distinguish between the required input,the operating mechanism and tools, and the de-sired output.

f Secondly, the competitive foundations of agilemanufacturing are made explicitly clear. Thebases for competition include: speed, #exibility,innovation, proactivity, quality and pro"tability.This portfolio of competitive thrusts have beenrecognised as the sine qua non of manufacturingwhich must be achieved in synergy [22,26].

f Thirdly, there are three levels of agility implicit inthe de"nition. That is, agility for the individual(and other resources), enterprise and inter-enter-prise. Goldman et al. [10] have already high-lighted agility for individuals and enterprise.A third level of agility for inter-enterprise is beingsuggested in this paper. Fig. 1 presents the hier-archy of agility and the corresponding character-isation, viz. elemental agility, micro-agility andmacro-agility. The "gure suggests that a truly

Fig. 1. Hierarchy of agility.

agile organisation focuses on individual re-sources (people, machinery and management),and the functions that make up the enterprise toachieve the best possible output. It is the har-monisation of these aspects of the organisationthat leads to agility rather than their respectiveoptimisation. Further to achieve the higher levelof agility the core competencies of prospectivepartners must be brought into joint venturing tomaximise the gains of cooperation.

f Finally, the de"nition takes cognisance of thefour main concepts of agility. It is increasinglybeing recognised that there are four key conceptsfor agile competition. These concepts includecompetition based on core competence manage-ment, virtual enterprise formation, capability forre-con"guration and knowledge-driven enter-prise. The interactions of these four concepts areillustrated in Fig. 2. These concepts are discussedin detail in the following section.

5. The core concepts of agile manufacturing

The model presented in Fig. 2 includes the fol-lowing core concepts of agile manufacturing.

5.1. Core competence management

Core competence may be associated with thecorporation's workforce and product and identi-"ed at two di!erent but related levels, the indi-vidual and the "rm. The core competencies of indi-vidual include their skills, knowledge, attitude andexpertise [11]. Through investment in training andeducation the core competencies of individualswithin the enterprise can be upgraded and re-fo-cused to take advantage of current and potential


Fig. 2. The core concepts of agility.

trends in customer requirements. Kidd [11] andGoldman et al. [10] have described people as thecritical resource of an organisation. Prahalad andHamel [27] stated that people are the competencecarriers.

The work of Prahalad and Hamel [27] on corecompetence is uniquely outstanding. Accordingto them core competence derives from corporate-wide learning process, integration of diverse skillsand streams of technologies, work organisation,creation and delivery of value and capability forinter-organisational cooperation. For core compet-ence to be of strategic importance and bring long-term bene"ts to the corporation it must meetthree conditions. Core competence should providecapability for multi-venturing and access to awide spectrum of markets. It should also stronglyenrich customer valuing of end products andbe di$cult for competitors to copy. Creatingand building core competencies is, however, not aneasy task. Management, who have the sole respons-ibility for core skills and knowledge acquisition,must begin by listing the company's main capabili-ties and identifying the missing links. The missinglinks can be `insourceda or acquired through al-liance. Cooperation is very important here evenwith competitors. This implies that in agile para-digm competition and cooperation are mutuallycompatible.

Cooperation among enterprises provides theplatform for rapid response to the level of demandwhich would, otherwise, be impossible for indi-

vidual organisations to achieve. Requirements forcomplex new products can easily be met throughan interactive network, `allowing physically disper-sed and organisationally segregated personnel fromthe same company to work collaboratively withone another and with personnel from other com-paniesa [9]. This is often referred to as virtualcorporation. In a virtual corporation, competencecarriers are transparently available to all businessunits. Talented personnel can easily be redeployedas the windows of opportunities open and close.Agile organisations, therefore, are apt to increasethe stock and velocity of circulation of their talents[27].

5.2. Virtual enterprise

The virtual enterprise is di!erent from the tradi-tional corporate alliance. Fig. 3 presents three

Fig. 3. Partnership development model.


levels of cooperation among enterprises culmina-ting in virtual partnership. The "rst stage repres-ents enterprises that have operated as isolatedislands. Interactions between companies at thecorporate level with little or no liaison at the opera-tional levels are depicted in stage two. For examplecompanies may enter into purchasing agreementand exploit EDI to facilitate cooperation but man-agement make the decision without involving func-tional sta!. In stage three agile organisations formvirtual enterprises and cooperate both at the corpo-rate and operational levels. Agile teams workacross the company partners. This is the climax ofcooperative venturing. It allows resources and di-verse skills which are spread across disparate or-ganisations to be harnessed and coordinated formanufacturing products, simple or complex, veryquickly in accordance with customer speci"cations.Customers can become part of the web of "rmsa context within which QFD becomes more mean-ingful as a facilitator for translating customer re-quirements into end products. Although thetechnology for achieving the third stage scenariomay be available, the key business processes arepoorly understood and ill-de"ned. Accordingly,Goldman and Nagel [4] suggested that `techniquesneed to be developed for managing companies thatpromote workforce initiative at the operationallevel, as well as performance measures for self-directed, inter-enterprise, project teamsa.

There are two possible approaches for opera-tionalising the virtual enterprise. A big corporationcan re-organise its business units, and re-focus oncore competencies, to operate as a virtual enter-prise. Such a corporation will have no need forgiving away its expertise. The lack of focus on corecompetence, for example, was a key factor inChrysler giving away their engine design responsi-bility in the late 1980s [27]. The other possibleapproach is for small companies to come togetherand deliver the quality, scope and scale of productsand services which they would not have been ableto provide individually. There is a great potential,therefore, for exploitation of the agile principlesand practices by SMEs through rapid partnershipformation. However, the right mindset among em-ployees, the necessary business practices required,processes, as well as the methods and tools, are not

yet su$ciently developed in the UK. For example,a simple question such as `How do we go aboutbecoming agile?a cannot be answered with clarityas there is no available guide and re"ned methodo-logy.

5.3. Capability for re-con,guration

Agile enterprises can easily make a signi"cantshift in focus, diversify, con"gure and re-aligntheir business to serve a particular purpose rapidlyas the windows of opportunities open. In addition,they are capable of pre-empting competition. Thekey to that, Prahalad and Hamel [27] argue, is todevelop a strategic architecture featuring a corpo-rate wide map of core skills. This type of organisa-tion is well positioned to take advantage of speed,by getting to the market before competitors withnew products, and proactivity, by providing theproducts that will be required by customers justbefore the need arises. Operational recon"gurationis necessary to capitalise on the strategic architec-ture. Management must invest in technologies thatconfer operational #exibility at the plant level.However, Goldman and Nagel [9] have cautionedagainst placing excessive premium on technology`however dazzling their performancea and con-cluded that `the notion that new technologies con-fer competitive advantage through some intrinsicproperties that they possess is a fundamental mis-conceptiona.

5.4. Knowledge-driven enterprise

Kidd [11] has broadly de"ned knowledge, withrespect to manufacturing, to include experiences ofpeople in the organisation, company reports, casehistories, databases and other repositories. Organ-isations which intend to become agile should in-clude the development of a well trained andmotivated workforce, with the right set of skills,expertise and knowledge, as an essential element oftheir strategies. Such organisations are driven byknowledge and information possessed by and avail-able to the work force. This epitomises the notionthat `knowledge is powera.


The concept of knowledge-driven enterprises de-rives from increasing recognition of knowledge andinformation as the main di!erentiators of successfulbusiness. The success of any organisation ultimate-ly depends upon its ability to convert the collectiveknowledge and skills of its most critical resource} people } into solution products. The use andmanipulation of information, as a key competitiveinstrument has also revolutionised the way that wethink about manufacturing and how we operate it.The ability to control the new product introductionprocess from the conceptualisation and designstages through manufacturing to shipment andproduct support requires the exploitation ofa knowledge-rich work force and sophisticated in-formation technology in most industrial sectors.Agility introduces a new dimension to customersupport to include the provision of access to en-hanced functionality originally embedded in theproduct. In essence the customer is getting anupgraded product at a lower cost than wouldotherwise have been the case. The manufactureralso saves the time for production of an entirelynew product to account for the new customer re-quirements. In a way, this is also environmentallyfriendly as it eliminates the need for a new productwith enhanced performance.

6. Achieving attributes of agility

Burgess [2] pro!ered IT-enabled processes forachieving agility and identi"ed "ve stages depend-ing on the nature of the manufacturing outcomes.These stages include localised exploitation, internalintegration, business process redesign, business net-work redesign and business scope rede"nition. Inthe opinion of Burgess, these stages result in islandsof automation, computer-integrated manufacture,agile manufacturing enterprise, virtual agile enter-prise and rede"ned virtual agile enterprise, respec-tively. Organisation must evolve through any of theprocesses identi"ed to achieve the desired outcomeof manufacturing. Although Burgess did not pro-vide explicit comment on the vision of the rede"nedvirtual enterprise with its rede"ned business scope,su$ce it to state that such an enterprise will bein"nitely #exible in its tactical and strategic concerns.

Gehani [5] suggested six actions required for theimplementation of an agility-based strategy: Cross-functional team sharing, empowerment for front-line decision making, modular integration of avail-able technologies, delayed design speci"cation,product succession planning and enterprise-wideintegration of learning. According to Gehani [5],by `early involvement of marketers in product con-cept de"nition, and involvement of manufacturersin engineering of the processes for producing theproduct, many potential downstream problems arepre-empted and prevented at an early stagea.Kumar and Motwani [16], who are of a similaropinion regarding concurrent engineering, statedthat `savings in development time accrue from thefact that the backtracking needed to solve problemswhen these activities are performed in chronologi-cal sequence is reduced or completely removeda.Such cross-functional teams will need to be sup-ported by a concurrent information structure andinfrastructure. The concurrent paradigm, as op-posed to the sequential paradigm, has been exam-ined by Pant et al. [28]. Their model of this parallelparadigm was validated through case studies andthey demonstrated that signi"cant gains in speedcan be achieved through parallel information pro-cessing and concurrent execution of functions.

Employee empowerment is a well re-hearsedconcept in manufacturing strategies and is a criticalpart of TQM. Empowerment enables employeesto take decisions and provide remedial actionsquickly. Such speedy responses will have a signi"-cant impact on the rate of order ful"lment. Sim-ilarly, modularity will enable the organisation tomeet the customer's speci"cations by modifyingquickly parts of the product. Delayed design speci-"cation gives more room for late-minute changes.The product planning and de"nition stages cantake a long time and "nal production need only bestarted after the customer is satis"ed with the speci-"cation.

An agile organisation must develop a strategicplan to launch new products in succession. Launch-ing a single product hastily without a follow-upcould be counter-productive. Youssef [21] cau-tioned against speed-to-market in spite of its vir-tues and wrote that `using speed as a strategy mustbe planned carefully, for otherwise speed can be


fatala. Enterprise-wide integration of functions canlead to the signi"cant achievement of a broad spec-trum of competitive advantages. For example,Yusuf [22] when investigating enterprise-wide in-tegration of functions and technologies that weretraditionally isolated, such as computer-aided de-sign (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing(CAM), manufacturing resource planning (MRPII)and distribution resource planning (DRP), foundthat integrated organisations are better than theirless integrated counterparts. This superiority wastrue for a range of competitive advantages includ-ing responsiveness, customer service, new productintroduction and quality improvement. An inte-grated learning process occurs when managers fo-cus on their companies' `longitudinal historiesa toavoid previous mistakes.

Collectively these literature provide insights towhat constitutes agile practices and attributes of anagile organisation. The suggested attributes of agil-ity are summarised in Table 1. The table presents32 attributes, in 10 decision domains, of an agilemanufacturing enterprise. The pathways and ob-stacles to achieving these attributes are importantissues for consideration if progress is to be achievedin moving towards agility. Also important is themetrics for the processes that are required forachieving agility. These requirements are represent-ed in a conceptual framework in Fig. 4. The frame-work integrates a set of practices (attributes),metrics and pathways or obstacles to achievingagility.

7. Further work

More work needs to be done on the core con-cepts of agility discussed in this paper. For example,the key business processes for organising and opti-mising operational level inter-enterprise coopera-tion is not well understood. Employees that havehitherto worked within, and maintained allegianceto, their sections in a typical departmentalisedorganisation, will be required to work in a trans-parent virtual organisation without functional bar-riers. This will require a tremendous change inattitude and approach to work. Each employee willbe required to view and understand her work in

Table 1The attributes of an agile organisation

Decision domain Related attributes

Integration Concurrent execution of activitiesEnterprise integrationInformation accessible to employees

Competence Multi-venturing capabilitiesDeveloped business practice di$cult tocopy

Team building Empowered individuals working inteamsCross functional teamsTeams across company bordersDecentralised decision making

Technology Technology awarenessLeadership in the use of current techno-logySkill and knowledge enhancing techno-logiesFlexible production technology

Quality Quality over product lifeProducts with substantial value-additionFirst-time right designShort development cycle times

Change Continuous improvementCulture of change

Partnership Rapid partnership formationStrategic relationship with customersClose relationship with suppliersTrust-based relationship with custo-mers/suppliers

Market New product introductionCustomer-driven innovationsCustomer satisfactionResponse to changing market require-ments

Education Learning organisationMulti-skilled and #exible peopleWorkforce skill upgradeContinuous training and development

Welfare Employee satisfaction

terms of the whole rather than the part. Forexample, an aircraft wing designer must perceiveherself as an aircraft manufacturer and place herwork in the context of aircraft manufacture andsales. Another important issue relates to nurturingcore competence and its deployment. For example,when organisations transfer their core competen-cies to form virtual enterprises what happens totheir competencies that are not core or what hap-pens to the gap created by `virtuala absence of the


Fig. 4. A framework for achieving agility.

core competence? These, and may other, questionsneed to be properly addressed if agile manufactur-ing is to be practised to the full.

QFD may o!er a solution to these questions. Itcan be used to assess and rank the capabilities of anorganisation vis-a-vis their competitors. These ca-pabilities can then be matched to customer require-ments in order to determine the competitiveness ofthe organisation. A similar approach can be ad-opted, using QFD to evaluate core competence ofan organisation. In addition, a strategic missionstatement of an organisation can be used to assessthe requirements for future core competence usingQFD. Succinctly, the application of QFD in identi-fying, creating and nurturing core competencies oforganisations needs to be investigated.

The enablers of agility need further explorationto "nd out best examples of each and of the under-lining practices that help achieve, sustain and main-tain each one over a long period of time. Along withthis is the need to explore how to integrate thegamut of such best practices in a single company.To identify the best practices however will requireextensive investigations and comparative analysesof cases.

8. Conclusions

Agile manufacturing may be new as a conceptbut aspects of the practices embodied in agility arealready in place separately. To extend understand-ing of agility there is the need to develop a workingunderstanding and models of agile manufacturing.Such models may not be radically di!erent from

those of the existing manufacturing paradigms,since agility does not negate any of the earlierparadigms. What is required is a methodology forsynthesising the existing models to aid their ap-plication.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the"nancial support for this project by EPSRC andparticipating companies.

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Agile Manufacturing the Drivers Concepts and Attributes

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