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Agile manufacturing has been promoted as a national strategy for improving industrial competitiveness. Agility refers to the capability to very rapidly go from a set of unique customer requirements to a quality, finished product. An appreciation of the human factors inherent to agile product development is pivotal to the successful integration of agility-enabling technologies, as well as the coordination of personnel working within a concurrent engineering environment. This article briefly summarizes human factors contributions to: (1) development of agile business practices; (2) design of enabling technologies; and (3) management of the introduction and fielding of new technologies and business practices. More detailed discussion is offered for human factors related to the communications and information infrastructure essential to an organization making the transition from traditional to agile product development. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Chris Forsythe (Wed,) studied this question.