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Mass customization: Literature review and research directions

Agile manufacturing: A framework for research and development

The widespread use of information technology (IT) to create electronic linkages among supply chain partners with the objective of reducing transaction costs may have unintended adverse effects on supply chain flexibility Increasing business dynamics, changing customer preferences, and disruptive technological shifts pose the need for two kinds of flexibility that interenterprise information systems must address--the ability of interenterprise linkages to support changes in offering characteristics (offering flexibility) and the ability to alter linkages to partner with different supply chain players (partnering flexibility) This study explores how enterprises in supply chains may forge supply chain linkages that enable both types of flexibility jointly, and allow them to deal with ubiquitous change Drawing on March and Simon's coordination theory, we propose two design principles: (1) advance structuring of interorganizational processes and information exchange that allows partnering organizations to be loosely coupled, and (2) IT-supported dynamic adjustment that allows enterprises to quickly sense change and adapt their supply chain linkages This study reports on a survey of 41 supply chain relationships in the IT industry For design principle, our empirical investigation of factors shows (1) that modular design of interconnected processes and structured data connectivity are associated with higher supply chain flexibility, and (2) that deep coordination-related knowledge is critical for supply chain flexibility Also, sharing a broad range of information with partners is detrimental to supply chain flexibility, and organizations should instead focus on improving the quality of information shared For industry managers, the study provides clear insights for information infrastructure design To manage their interdependencies, enterprises need to encapsulate their interconnected processes in modular chunks, and support these with IT platforms for information exchange in structured formats Enterprises also need to nurture their execution capabilities by putting in place the information systems to process information exchanged with partners, augmenting their understanding of factors such as how partner actions need to trigger adaptive responses For researchers, the study initiates a new stream of theorizing that focuses on the role of the information infrastructure in managing the tension between competing goals of offering flexibility and partnering flexibility

Coordinating for Flexibility in e-Business Supply Chains

About a decade ago, the agile manufacturing paradigm was formulated in response to the constantly changing 'new economy' and as a basis for returning to global competitiveness. While agility means different things to different enterprises under different contexts, the following elements capture its essential concept: agility is characterized by cooperativeness and synergism (possibly resulting in virtual corporations), by a strategic vision that enables thriving in face of continuous and unpredictable change, by the responsive creation and delivery of customer-valued, high quality and mass customized goods/services, by nimble organization structures of a knowledgeable and empowered workforce, and facilitated by an information infrastructure that links constituent partners in a unified electronic network. During this period, a significant amount of attention from both the academic and industrial communities has produced a large body of results in research and development related to this topic. Each contrib...

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A review of agile manufacturing systems

Agile Manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new operations concept that is intended to improve the competitiveness of firms. Manufacturing/service processes based on AM are characterized by customer-supplier integrated processes for product design, manufacturing, marketing, and support services. Agile manufacturing requires enriching of the customer; cooperating with competitors; organizing to manage change, uncertainty and complexity; and leveraging people and information. In recent years, a number of research papers have been published in the area of AM. The term 'agile' was coined in 1991. However, there are still some serious concerns that prevent companies from taking an entirely different direction from AM. Considering the potential importance of agile manufacturing in 21st century manufacturing competitiveness, an attempt has been made in this paper to reexamine the scope, definitions and strategies of AM. In addition, a framework has been presented as a basis for understanding the major strategies and relevant technologies of AM.

Agile manufacturing: A taxonomy of strategic and technological imperatives

In the new and emerging agile manufacturing paradigm, where multiple firms cooperate under flexible virtual enterprise structures, there exists a great need for a mechanism to manage and control information flow among collaborating partners. In response to this pressing need, this paper addresses the design and implementation of an agile manufacturing information system integrating manufacturing databases dispersed at various partner sites. We propose a framework in which: (1) information is modeled in a hierarchical fashion using object-oriented methodology (OOM); (2) information transactions are specified by the workflow hierarchy consisting of partner workflows; (3) information flow between partners is controlled by a set of distributed workflow managers (WM) interacting with partner knowledge bases, which reflect partner specific information control rules on internal data exchange, as well as inter-partner mutual protocols for joint partner communications; (4) the prototype system is accomplished using the World Wide Web based on a client-server architecture. The overall approach and system provides within a dynamic environment, where virtual partnerships are synthesized in response to specific business initiatives, a dynamic and flexible mechanism to support partner information exchange and to keep the dispersed information consistent.

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Liugen Song

Papers

Design and implementation of a virtual information system for agile manufacturing

Integrated information framework for agile manufacturing