The Management of Manufacturing Flexibility

Defines flexibility as the ability to change or react with little penalty in time, effort, cost or performance, and surveys the literature on manufacturing flexibility. Presents a framework for its analysis, which provides a common language about the various categories of flexibility the company needs to manage; allows the company to rank them in order of importance, or of the degree of management attention they will need; and enables managers to formulate clear implementation plans for maintaining, measuring and improving them. It also allows managers to determine and distinguish what is required of manufacturing operations, and provides a common base of understanding, so that all involved know what is to be improved. Presents two case examples illustrating the application of the framework to define the type of flexibility - in terms of its dimensions, time horizons and elements - of concern to each of the companies involved.