From lean to agile manufacturing

The main challenges facing manufacturing companies, both now and increasingly in the future are: increasing competition, mainly through overcapacity; changing relationships with business stakeholders; increasingly demanding customers; growth in new technology; global distribution of design and production; environmental legislation; and political and economic factors. Here, the authors argue that in order to address these issues and remain (or become) successful, manufacturing companies need to respond in the following ways: be more responsive to changing markets; be more customer focused; be adaptable to new situations; form alliances and partnerships; manage the strategic supply chain; minimise the time-to-market of new products; and utilize the developing technologies for global communication