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Purpose – Agile manufacturing concept was first coined by Iacocca institute in 1991 as a new manufacturing paradigm in order to provide and ensure competitiveness in the emerging global manufacturing order. Afterward, a considerable number of studies have been conducted in this area. Reviewing these studies reveals that they mostly focus on agile manufacturing drivers, definition and characteristics but few of them propose practical solutions to achieve it. Moreover, among proposed approaches toward agility, the impact of product design has been less studied. However, the substantial impacts of product design on manufacturing firms are widely accepted. To fill this gap, this research aims to analyse how the product design affects the potential of being agile in a manufacturing firm. In this research the main focus is on the architecture of product as a part of its design. Methodology – Since this research requires synthesizing and bridging two separate fields, agile manufacturing and product architecture, the “literature review” method is adopted. Findings – Agile manufacturing has four main dimensions: drivers, capabilities, strategies and providers. To become an agile competitor, a manufacturing firm should concentrate on enriching a set of appropriate agility capabilities. Moreover, product architecture allocates functions to physical chunks (major building blocks of a product) and determines interfaces among chunks. The analysis of reviewed literature exhibits that product architecture has strong implications for agility capabilities. These implications might have both positive or negative effects which result in various trade-offs. Additionally, these trade-offs disclose this fact that there is not a superior architecture. Thus, a manufacturing firm is able to adopt suitable product architecture by considering the product architecture impacts on agility capabilities and related trade-offs. Value – This study organized and summarized a considerable number of researches’ outcomes in the product architecture area. In addition, it covers the lack of attention to product architecture in agile manufacturing literature. Also, it exhibits how product architecture may contribute to manufacturers which are moving toward agility. This report raises managers and practitioners’ awareness regarding product architecture potential and probable consequences of different choices that they make.

Agile manufacturing has become a topic of great interest over the past several years. The entire domain of modeling and analyzing different types of agile manufacturing environments and systems, however, remain largely unexplored. The objective of this research is to provide fundamental insight into how manufacturing systems should be designed and reconfigured over time in order to cope with different agile manufacturing environments. To achieve this objective, three approaches are developed and integrated into one simulation-based model. The first approach is used to model different agile manufacturing environments. The second approach is used to define various ways in which manufacturing systems can be designed and reconfigured (i.e., design/reconfiguration strategies). The third comprises the cost and objective functions used to measure system performance when different design/reconfiguration strategies are used in different agile manufacturing environments. Based upon the assumptions adopted during this thesis, the experimental work performed suggests that despite the fact that agility incurs high costs, agile manufacturing systems are indeed necessary for certain manufacturing environments in which product life cycles are short yet demand per product type is high. Therefore, it is important in certain manufacturing environments to focus on reconfiguration in short periods of time, even at the expense of higher reconfiguration costs. / Master of Science

Background: Based upon two important phenomena within the manufacturing industry an upcoming agile era is being proposed within this thesis, those phenomena have shown a shift in the focus of attention for companies within the manufacturing industry in the past. The first phenomenon is being referred to as “physical product development saturation” and the second phenomenon is “lean saturation”, which are introduced in order to give importance to the aspiration for a new emphasis to remain competitiveness and create more value within the manufacturing industry. Where in the past the focus was on physical product development, this in order to enhance and or invent new products. This was followed by the need for a more efficient way of working by eliminating wastes (Lean), although both phenomena are about to reach their limits with respect to the extra value they (can) create. The forthcoming agile era allows for a new way of value creation, this by adaptivity. This introduces the potential of a new way to create value, this being done by the agile way of working. Purpose: The research in this thesis aimed to find an answer to the question of how companies within the manufacturing industry could adopt an agile way of working in order to allow for a new way of value creation. Method: This research was approached by conducting a qualitative study. Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted, with companies from the manufacturing, IT and consultancy industries. The collected data was then sorted and analysed systematically to generate knowledge and draw upon conclusions to answer the proposed research questions. Conclusion: In order to successfully adopt the agile way of working, within an organization in the manufacturing industry, the challenge is to create awareness and an understanding of the value and benefits an agile way of working could create, especially for the middle-management. This could be done by explaining an agile way of working as an extension to Lean. Furthermore, the tools &amp; processes of the agile way of working could be experimented with in order to start “doing agile”, this finally resulting in creating an understanding of the potential power of an agile way of working. Whereas, an agile way of working is being characterized by an encouraging, transparent culture led by a servant leadership style by making use of empowerment to stimulate value creation. Ultimately, resulting in adopting an agile way of working and achieving “becoming agile”. / <p>Thesis written in the  context of the study program “Engineering Management”.</p>

In order to stay competitive in today’s overly competitive market place, businesses must be engineered to match product characteristics and customer requirements. This increased emphasis on achieving highly adaptive manufacturing with reduction in manufacturing costs, better utilization of manufacturing resources and sound environmental management practices force organisations to adopt efficient management practices in their manufacturing operations. Some of the established practices in this context belong to the Lean, Agility and Green (LAG) paradigms. Adopting these practices in order to address customer requirements may require some level of expertise and understanding of the contribution (or lack of it) of the practices in meeting those requirements. Primarily, the wide choice of LAG practices available to address customer requirements can be confusing and/or challenging for those with limited knowledge of LAG practices and their efficacy. There is currently no systematic methodology available for selecting appropriate LAG practices considering of the product life cycle (PLC). Therefore, this research provides a novel framework for selecting appropriate LAG practices based on PLC stages for reducing costs, lead time and generated waste. The methodology describes the application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP), statistical inference and regression analysis as decision support tools, ensuring a systematic approach to the analysis with appropriate performance measures. The data collected were analysed with the aid of SPSS and Excel using a variety of statistical methods. The framework was verified through a Delphi study and validated using a case study. The key findings of the research include the various contributions of lean, agile and green practices towards improving performance measures, the importance of green in improving performance measures and the importance of selecting appropriate practices based on product life cycle stages. This research makes a clear contribution to existing body of knowledge by providing a methodological framework which could serve as a guide for companies in the FMCG industry to systematically integrate and adopt lean, agile and green to better manage their processes and meet customer requirements in their organisations. However, the framework developed in this research has not been tested in other areas.

Background: Today’s business environment is characterized by fast-changing technologies and shorter product life-cycles, well-educated customers and fierce competition. Within this context, agile manufacturing is praised in the literature as one of the solutions for achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage in turbulent times. Aim: The purpose of this master thesis is to fill in the identified theoretical and empirical gaps by exploring and scrutinizing the relevancy of the agile manufacturing concept in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the computer, electronic and optical manufacturing industry in Sweden. Furthermore, a model illustrating the agile manufacturing enablers applied in the selected industry will be developed. Definition: Agile manufacturing can be defined as a new production concept integrating employees, suppliers and customers, as well as units of production by using the support of software and communication systems. Methodology: Eight interviews with managers have been conducted in order to capture the big picture of how the SMEs in the chosen industry enable responsiveness to changes. A survey answered by 50 SMEs within the same industry was carried out in order to test the interview findings on a larger scale and to provide the basis for a further comparison with the existing agile manufacturing body of knowledge Results: Agile manufacturing is indeed relevant in the studied industry as it is driven by agility drivers and thus characterized by fast-changing technologies and well-educated customers. However, the agile manufacturing enablers partly differ from the ones praised in the literature and are more adjusted to the size and characteristics of SMEs. Nevertheless, a conscious awareness of the agile manufacturing concept itself was not found and the enablers identified were rather described as logical business thinking.

Current manufacturing automation systems (specifically the powertrain sector) have been facing challenges with constant pressures of globalisation, environmental concerns and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) innovations. These challenges instigate new demands for shorter product lifecycles and require customised products to be manufactured as efficiently as possible. Manufacturing systems must therefore be agile to remain competitive by supporting frequent reconfigurations involving distributed engineering activities.

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As the product-release cycle in the tech industry speeds up, there is more pressure on manufacturers to bring new products to market faster than ever. This puts a great deal of pressure on the suppliers of capital equipment used to manufacture these tech products. The supply chain agility of these suppliers is increasingly important. The purpose of this study is three-fold (1) to develop a methodology that can be used by any firm for measuring and ranking the agility of suppliers and finding the root causes of supplier agility, (2) to develop the first-ever fully quantitative measure of supply chain agility, and (3) to test if the supply chain management practices that are associated with agility in the academic literature are truly correlated with supply chain agility. Using the outlined methodology in this paper, the data suggest that the customer's current system and processes adequately met the need for short-notice, expedited build times. However, many processes and communications between the suppliers and customer have a lot of room for improvement that may positively impact the supply chain agility of suppliers. Since most every firm captures this same data, such as PO create dates and supplier ship dates, any firm can and should replicate this analysis to discover their suppliers' unique drivers of supply chain agility. Each supplier's historical agility was measured and ranked using historical order performance data. This agility score is the first of its kind to measure agility without the use of qualitative factors or self-reported measures of agility. Only three of the supply chain survey questions developed from or borrowed from the academic literature were correlated with supply chain agility in this study. Survey responses regarding the frequency of communication and information sharing are two examples of variables that were not associated with supplier supply chain agility. The only survey question response that was found to be positively correlated with supply chain agility involves the agile practice of delayed product differentiation. Contrary to the literature, two questions involving supplier-customer communication and the linking of order management system were found to be negatively correlated with supply chain agility. In regards to the non-survey, historical data, the independent variables that were correlated with agility highlighted the need for improved systems and processes between the suppliers and customer. Two examples of processes and systems that need improvement are expedited build time requests and PO swaps.

The implementation of lean manufacturing concepts has shown significant impacts on various industries. Numerous tools and techniques have been developed to tackle specific problems in order to eliminate wastes and carry out lean concepts. With the focus on "how to make a system leaner," little effort has been made on determining "how lean the system is." Lean assessment surveys evaluate the current status of a system qualitatively against predefined lean indicators. Lean metrics are developed to quantify performance of improvement initiatives, but each metric only focuses on one specific area. Value Stream Maps demonstrate the current and future states graphically with the emphasis on time-based performance only. A truly quantitative and synthesized measure for overall leanness has not been established. In some circumstances, being lean may not be the only goal for manufacturers. In order to compete in the rapidly changing marketplace, manufacturing systems should also be agile to respond quickly to uncertain demands. Nevertheless, being extremely agile may increase the cost of regular operations and reduce the leanness of the system. Similarly, being extremely lean may reduce flexibility and lower the agility level. Therefore, a manufacturing system should be agile enough to handle the uncertainty of demands and meanwhile be lean enough to deliver goods with competitive prices and lead time. In order to achieve the appropriate leanness level, a leanness measure is needed to address not only "how lean the system is" but also "how lean it should be." In this research, a methodology is proposed to quantitatively measure leanness level of manufacturing systems using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. The production process of each work piece is defined as a Decision Making Unit (DMU) that transforms inputs of Cost and Time into output Value. Using a Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model, the DEA-Leanness Measure is developed to quantify the leanness level of each DMU by comparing the DMU against the frontier of leanness. A Cost-Time-Value analysis is developed to create virtual DMUs to push the frontier towards ideal leanness so that an effective benchmark can be established. The DEA-Leanness Measure provides a unit-invariant leanness score valued between 0 and 1, which is an indication of "how lean the system is" and also "how much leaner the system can be." With the help of Cost-Time Profiling technique, directions of potential improvement can be identified by comparing the profiles of DMUs with different leanness scores. The leanness measure can also be weighted between Cost, Time and Value variables. The weighted DEA-Leanness Measure provides a way to evaluate the impacts of improvement initiatives with an emphasis on the company's strategic focus. Performing the DEA-Leanness measurement requires detailed cost and time data. A Web-Based Kanban is developed to facilitate automated data collection and real-time performance analysis. In some circumstances where detailed data is not readily available but a Value Stream Maps (VSM) has been constructed, the applications of DEA-Leanness Measure based on existing VSM are explored. Besides pursuing leanness, satisfying a customer's demand pattern requires certain level of agility. Based on the DEA-Leanness Measure, appropriate leanness targets can be identified for manufacturing systems considering sufficient agility level. The Online-Delay and Offline-Delay Targets are determined to represent the minimum acceptable delays considering inevitable waste within and beyond a manufacturing system. Combining the two targets, a Lean-Agile Performance Index can then be derived to evaluate if the system has achieved an appropriate level of leanness with sufficient agility for meeting the customers' demand. Hypothetical cases mimicking real manufacturing systems are developed to verify the proposed methodologies. An Excel-based DEA-Leanness Solver and a Web-Kanban System have been developed to solve the mathematical models and to substantiate potential applications of the leanness measure in real world. Finally, future research directions are suggested to further enhance the results of this research. / Ph. D.