Flexibility in Manufacturing – An Empirical Case-Study Research

Abstract

Since the last two decades, manufacturing firms are facing an increasingly risky environment because of product differentiation, high demand variability and shortening of product life-cycles. Because of these trends, firms need to innovate their manufacturing resources in order to promptly respond to new requests coming from markets. Traditionally, this meant moving from rigid production lines to Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). However, literature and empirical evidence prove that firms have not really located themselves on one of these two opposing manufacturing plant strategies. Rather, they have filled up the vast “gray area” in the middle. Their attempts have been aimed at developing manufacturing system solutions allowing them to precisely supply their markets’ needs, and consequently paying for the system flexibility they really need. Because of this, the concept of manufacturing flexibility has to be revised and extended in order to include these solutions involving a “customized” or “focused” architectural flexibility. The current chapter shows the results from the case study research that empirically supports and casts insights in this trend. Based on these findings, a conceptual framework is proposed to interpret how firms perceive the strategic meaning of and realize flexibility.