The Flexible Manufacturing Mission — Some Implications for Management

Flexible manufacturing can be understood and managed even by non‐technological senior management provided they are involved in agreeing market parameters, technological flexibility needs, and quality, cost and delivery performances, and ensure that detailed lower level decisions on operational matters comply with strategy. The tendency to abdicate responsibility for technological decisions to lower levels of management must be avoided. A development path extending three to ten years into the future is required, as only those companies which adopt a flexible manufacturing policy, integrating market/financial requirements with effective production, can hope to compete in the future.