Agile manufacturing is defined as the capability of surviving and prospering in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets, driven by customer-designed products and services. Critical to successfully accomplishing AM are a few enabling technologies such as the standard for the exchange of products (STEP), concurrent engineering, virtual manufacturing, component-based hierarchical shop floor control system, information and communication infrastructure, etc.The scope of the book is to present the undergraduate and graduate students, senior managers and researchers in manufacturing systems design and management, industrial engineering and information technology with the conceptual and theoretical basis for the design and implementation of AMS. Also, the book focuses on broad policy directives and plans of agile manufacturing that guide the monitoring and evaluating the manufacturing strategies and their performance. A problem solving approach is taken throughout the book, emphasizing the context of agile manufacturing and the complexities to be addressed.

Management books and articles on the manufacturing industry have long focused on process efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. Waterfall and Lean approaches are now consolidated, but they offer a partial solution to the needs of product development in today’s vuca world. Once appropriately adapted to the development of hardware products, Agile finally makes it possible to give an organic response to the complexity of the variables involved – from customer needs to constructability and environmental impact – by putting people at the centre. The results of the iterative and incremental approach described in these pages are extraordinary in terms of speed of development, quality of the product and construction of stimulating and collaborative work environments. Creativity and the ability to generate new products are incredibly enhanced as a result. The physicality of products enabled by software is the challenge we need to face in order to become active participants in the fifth industrial revolution. “The Agile Factory represents an approach to Agile hardware development integrating Lean, Waterfall and other practices. It removes the barriers between the office and the shop floor to turn them into an elastic, creative and human craft system capable of quickly transforming ideas into valuable and successful products.”

This work defines "Agile Manufacturing" and dispels the mistaken beliefs that surround it. It analyzes how our traditions, conventions, values and beliefs, based on outdated ideas and philosophies, block the path to achieving "Agile Manufacturing". The book then maps the way forward.

A practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations make an impact with software.

Becoming a world-class company demands agile manufacturing—a responsive method of expeditiously delivering products at a lower cost. For organizations which desire to increase profits while minimizing liability, this text is an invaluable guide. It explains how to introduce flexibility into manufacturing facilities through the modification of current computer software and systems. Rather than taking the cost-prohibitive approach of discarding the processes a company already has in play and starting from scratch, organizations can achieve their goal of becoming agile manufacturers by modifying existing systems. The author utilizes numerous case studies from companies such as Xerox, General Motors, Harley-Davidson, and Motorola to explore the current software movement, from MRP II (benefits and limitations) to alternative methods employed by companies attempting to align their software with new world class methodologies. For manufacturing managers and MIS employees struggling with inadequate systems, Software and the Agile Manufacturer offers the practical solutions they need to successfully navigate the difficult transitional period on the way to world-class status.

Many organizations are facing the uphill battle of modernizing their legacy IT infrastructure. Most have evolved over the years by taking lessons from traditional or legacy manufacturing: creating a production process that puts the emphasis on the process instead of the people performing the tasks, allowing the organization to treat people like resources to try to achieve high-quality outcomes. But those practices and ideas are failing modern IT, where collaboration and creativeness are required to achieve high-performing, high-quality success. Mirco Hering, a thought leader in managing IT within legacy organizations, lays out a roadmap to success for IT managers, showing them how to create the right ecosystem, how to empower people to bring their best to work every day, and how to put the right technology in the driver's seat to propel their organization to success. But just having the right methods and tools will not magically transform an organization; the cultural change that is the hardest is also the most impactful. Using principles from Agile, Lean, and DevOps as well as first-hand examples from the enterprise world, Hering addresses the different challenges that legacy organizations face as they transform into modern IT departments.

Contemporary fastidious companies are required to eliminate wastes and offer value-added products and services to the customers, which requirement is fulfilled by adopting the paradigm called ‘lean manufacturing’. On the other side, futuristic companies surge towards reaching the twenty-first century mission by reacting quickly in accordance with the dynamic demands of the modern customers, for which researchers have been developing a paradigm called ‘agile manufacturing’. Although various techniques and tools are applied, cohesive procedures are yet to be evolved to implement these paradigms systematically and successfully in companies. In this context, this book is evolved to address students, academics, practitioners and researchers for gaining theoretical, practical and research futuristic knowledge on lean and agile manufacturing paradigms. Organised in 18 chapters, the text opens with a historical overview of lean and agile manufacturing paradigms. It then discusses the lean manufacturing principles with their application procedures. The book comprehensively analyses the methods of implementation of lean manufacturing paradigm in both traditional and moderate organisations. It also gives an equal treatment to the implementation of agile manufacturing paradigm under four drivers such as management driver, technology driver, manufacturing strategy driver and competition driver through the adoption of appropriate agile manufacturing criteria. The book concludes with a discussion of lean and agile manufacturing paradigms from the perspectives of academia, researchers and practitioners. The text is well supported by a large number of self-test questions with their answers. A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of research avenues at the end of each chapter, which enable the readers to carry out researches on these paradigms. This book is intended for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of industrial, manufacturing, production and mechanical engineering.

Today the Scottish electronics industry employs 40,000 people directly and a further 30,000 in the supply infrastructure. There are now more than 550 electronic manufacturing and supplier companies in ' Silicon Glen'. In terms of the contribution to the economy, electronics is by far the most valuable industry. Its value in 1996 was approximately £ 10billion and accounted for more than half of Scotland's exports. The major product groupings within the industry include: • PCs, laptops and workstations • Disk drives, cable harnessing • Printers, keyboards and peripherals • Semiconductor devices and PCBs • TV, VCRs, CDs, stereos and other consumer electronics • Cellular phones and telecommunications products • A TMs and funds transfer systems • Networking and security systems • Navigation and sonar systems • Microwave products • Power supplies • Software and compilers Many of these companies are multi-national OEMs, who came to Scotland as inward investing companies. Early inward investing companies were from USA, followed by companies from Japan, and more recently from Taiwan and Korea. An important segment of the industry is involved in the manufacture of computers, including IBM, Compaq, Digital and Sun. In fact approximately 40% of the PCs sold in Europe are built in Scotland. With five of the world's top eight computer manufacturers locating a manufacturing base in Scotland there has been an attraction for foreign companies keen to provide service for these multinationals. In 1995/96 the supply base output was worth £1.

Traditional manufacturing systems rely upon centralized, hierarchical systems that are not responsive enough to the increasing demand for mass customization. Decentralized, or heterarchical, management systems using autonomous agents promise to nullify the limitations of previous solutions. Agent-Based Manufacturing and Control Systems: New

From the bestselling author of Developing Products in Half the Time, this book presents a comprehensive approach to managing design-in-process inventory.