Title: Agility in small sized pump manufacturing companies - an exploration in an Indian scenario
Authors: A. Peramanan; P.K. Palani; S.R. Devadasan; V. Suresh
Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jayshriram Group of Institutions, Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, 638-660, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 641013, India ' Department of Production Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 641004, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, GKM College of Engineering and Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600-063, India
Abstract: Today, companies are required to imbibe agility characteristics. Agility of a company refers to its capability in producing innovative products by reacting quickly in accordance with the dynamic demands of the customers. In this paper, a research has been reported in which the agility level prevailing in three small size pump manufacturing companies located in India was measured by using a model called 20 criteria agile manufacturing measurement model. By using this model, the agility of these companies was measured by using a measure called agility index. The agility index of one of them was found to be higher than that of the other two. Further, it was explored to identify the weak agility criteria practiced in the three small size pump manufacturing companies. This exploration indicated that poor adoption of technology prevents the small sized pump manufacturing companies from speeding up of the agile manufacturing journey in an Indian scenario.
Keywords: agile manufacturing; performance measurement; organisational structure; information technology; pump manufacturing companies; flexible manufacturing system.
DOI: 10.1504/IJRAPIDM.2019.097029
International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing, 2019 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.77 - 94
Received: 10 May 2018
Accepted: 13 Jul 2018
Published online: 14 Dec 2018 *