The journey of manufacturing from the job shop to mass production has evolved several tools and
techniques. However, today before the world of work, globalization and ICT have posed severe challenges like how to meet unpredictable and continually changing market demands for product and services. Tools like TQM, JIT, Lean Manufacturing, FMS, CIM, six-sigma, PLM are found to be un-able to cope up with the agile market environment. Agile manufacturing can be the answer. In this paper a review of agile manufacturing literature is presented. Agile is a concept like gravity, mind, infinity or electrical current that cannot be seen but can be sensed and realized. Scope for future research work is also presented. Systems thinking, thoughts, actions and deeds of people and good blending of hard and soft skills can lead an organization to agile environment rather than fully depending on inanimate ICT data. It is believed that this paper will prove to be of interest to all agile people.
[...] The authors have proposed two decision models to assess the value of agility: Spreadsheet model and Decision Tree model Industry perception and comparison of dedicated, agile and FMS is based on such six factors as initial investment cost, cost to introduce new models, time to introduce new models, production volume capability, equipment reusability for other machining applications and capability to introduce new (unplanned) models The study could prove interesting to extend decisions to an enterprise perspective: where to use flexible, agile and dedicated systems to build a most “robust and resilient” manufacturing enterprise. [...]
[...] For integrated management system to succeed a change in the people's perception of the organization is required accompanied with a change in the activities performed. For road map change the simple technique is to have four sections equated to why, what, how and when of the proposed change, have in mind” and use Deming's cycle of continuous improvement, Plan, Do, Check and Act. Made2Manage software provides a deeper insight in lean manufacturing The roots of LM can be traced in JIT and demand flow disciplines that arose at Toyota and other Japanese manufacturing companies decades ago. [...]
[...] AM can be seen as a business concept, aiming, through agile properties, to put an enterprise in front of primary competitors This can be achieved using technologies to lever the skills and knowledge of people, thereby developing new products and services and improving the existing ones. AM is also built up around the synthesis of a number of enterprises as a joint venturing operation called as virtual corporation. Joint venture calls for deployment of advanced IT and development of highly nimble organizational structures supporting highly skilled, knowledgeable and empowered people. [...]
[...] September website: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2 0080924/OPINION02/ 809240310/1070 [2]Anon, A boom in Indian engineering, construction and manufacturing sector, October Human Resource Management, website: http://www.citeman.com/index.php/a-boom-inindian-engineering-construction-andmanufacturing-setor/ 4 Kidd P Agile Manufacturing: Key Issues, Email: website: http://www,cheshirehenbury.com Sanchez L M and Nagi A review of agile manufacturing systems, Int. J. Production Research Vol N pp. 3561-3600. Merat et al, Advances in Agile Manufacturing, proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, Albuquerque, New Mexico-April 1997. Elkis D Huang N and Alden J Agile [...]
[...] An agile work cell consisting of such elements as multiple Adept robots, a Bosch conveyor system, multiple flexible parts feeders at each robot's workstation, CCD cameras for parts feeding and hardware registration, and a dual VMEbus control system, etc., is designed for the task. Custom additions include: flexible part-feeder designs, creative gripper designs, and a vision-based flexible supervisory controller. Lessons learnt from this experience are: Modular and generic gripper, feeder and tooling design approaches enable rapid changeover. Feeder is so designed that it allows larger parts and larger hoppers Simultaneous product/process design with extension of design for manufacturability particular to AM Spurs and modular worktables exhibit more flexibility and effective space utilization. [...]
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