...Rakesh Narain; R.C. Yadav; Joseph Sarkis; James J. Cordeiro Flexibility in manufacturing has aroused considerable interest among researchers and professionals. However, the vast body of literature on flexibility does not adequately address the kind of flexibility a company needs to meet its...

...Marcel F. van Assen Agile manufacturing is largely dependent on the capabilities of its people to learn and evolve with change. However, while agile manufacturing uses e‐commerce enabled technology in a decentralized organizational setting, it remains unclear how these individual capabilities...

...M.F. van Assen; E.W. Hans; S.L. van de Velde In this paper, we present a planning and control framework for manufacture‐to‐order environments that enables and supports agile‐based discrete parts manufacturing. The characteristic elements of our framework are that it is decentralized, logistics...

...Bing Yu; Jennifer Anne Harding; Keith Popplewell Manufacturing enterprises must satisfy customers’ needs, in order to sustain their position in the competitive market. This requires the enterprises to continuously design and produce new products. To handle new product introductions or changes...

...Reggie Davidrajuh; Ziqiong Deng First this paper introduces the concepts of virtual manufacturing system (VMS). The host enterprise and the multiple numbers of supply and distribution enterprises that make up a VMS, and the hierarchical and horizontal relationship that exists between...

...J. Zhao; W.M. Cheung; R.I.M. Young An integrated, exchangeable, sharable and distributed information environment is one of the crucial factors to ensure the competitive advantage of a virtual enterprise. A manufacturing model that describes an enterprise’s manufacturing capability information...

... modeling methodology is presented, along with clustering based procedure for deriving a static structure model from functional requirements. Performance measures for evaluating the “quality” of the derived model are presented and discussed. A sample manufacturing application is provided in order...

...W.B. Lee; H.C.W. Lau The competitive advantage in manufacturing has shifted from the mass production paradigm to the one that is based on fast‐responsiveness and flexibility. A worldwide wave of industrial restructuring and the re‐emergence of “small firms” have paved ways for the evolution...

...Amrik S. Sohal Traces the development of agile manufacturing in Australia from the early 1980s to the present day. Looks at relevant projects and studies in the field such as the JITVIC program which focused on just‐in‐time manufacturing during 1985 and major studies carried out by the Australian...

...F.B. Vernadat Manufacturing agility can be defined as the ability to closely align manufacturing enterprise systems to changing business needs to achieve competitive performance. Agility has therefore three fundamental dimensions: organisation, technology and human, in addition to financial aspects...

...Mark Phillips Considers how far the aerospace industry has travelled on the long journey towards lean and agile manufacturing. Starts by comparing the industry with a well‐established model of a lean and in some cases agile manufacturing system already well established in the automotive...

...Allan Carrie As manufacturing becomes a truly global affair, the basis of competition will switch from individual companies and their supply chains to regional clusters. Large multi‐nationals can relocate operations to any part of the world, with significant impact on the regions into and out...