Title: A combined AHP- and DEA-based approach to measure agility of manufacturing systems

Authors: P.G. Saleeshya; A. Subash Babu

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University, 641105, Coimbatore, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076, India

Abstract: This paper is related to a real life study carried out in Indian manufacturing organisations to assess the extent to which the agile manufacturing paradigm is recognised and deployed, as this paradigm has been a major objective of many companies. A multi-level framework developed by the authors, along with a questionnaire was used to identify various enabling factors of agility in Indian manufacturing industries. This model helps to determine the measure of agility called 'Effectiveness Index' (EI) at the various hierarchical levels of an organisation. In this paper we propose an approach to measure the agility of manufacturing systems by combining the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodologies. The method of AHP was used to identify important agility enablers by deriving appropriate weights (Importance Index). DEA was used to compare and find out the priorities of various units of organisations by making use of the values of EI and Importance Index for agility.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; DEA; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; agile manufacturing; importance index; agility measures; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2012.049472

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2012 Vol.6 No.4, pp.431 - 455

Published online: 14 Nov 2014 *

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