WHAT IS AGILE MANUFACTURING? Why is it an effective strategy?

Agile manufacturing is a term applied to an organization that has created the processes, tools, and training to enable it to respond quickly to customer needs and market changes while still controlling costs and quality.

An enabling factor in becoming an agile manufacturer has been the development of manufacturing support technology that allows the marketers, the designers and the production personnel to share a common database of parts and products, to share data on production capacities and problems — particularly where small initial problems may have larger downstream  effects. It is a general proposition of manufacturing that the cost of correcting quality issues increases as the problem moves downstream, so that it is cheaper to correct quality problems at the earliest possible point in the process.

Agile manufacturing is seen as the next step after Lean manufacturing in the evolution of production methodology. The key difference between the two is like between a thin and an athletic person, agile being the latter. One can be neither, one or both. In manufacturing theory, being both is often referred to as leagile. According to Martin Christopher, when companies have to decide what to be, they have to look at the Customer Order Cycle (the time the customers are willing to wait) and the leadtime for getting supplies. If the supplier has a short lead time, lean production is possible. If the COC is short, agile production is beneficial.

Thank you El sherif for your question : -

In brief :

Agile manufacturing represents a very interesting approach to developing a competitive advantage in today’s fast-moving marketplace. It places an extremely strong focus on rapid response to the customer – turning speed and agility into a key competitive advantage. An agile company is in a much better position to take advantage of short windows of opportunity and fast changes in customer demand.

It is a very effective strategy because :

• Consumers love instant gratification. They are increasingly getting used to it and they are often willing to pay for it. For example, have you ever ordered a product with overnight shipping…waiting in eager anticipation?
• Consumers love choice. They prefer to get a product exactly as they want it…without compromise.
• Consumers are fickle. Their interests shift and move in unpredictable ways.