The term "agile manufacturing" has recently been coined in the manufacturing industry. While it lacks a clear or formal definition (Maskell, 1994, p. 39), it is does embody the spirit of the changes, which are taking place in the global manufacturing industry today. In order for an organization to compete effectively in the world markets of today, more is required than just an implementation of new manufacturing techniques or the latest in Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP) software such as PeopleSoft, SAP, or Oracle. Instead, the company must change its basic business processes and operations such that products, quality and service become second to none. Therefore, "agile manufacturing" represents not simply a set of techniques; rather, it represents a total, perhaps radical, changes in the way the organization approaches and performs its business.
Prior to the industrial revolution, products were manufactured by craftspersons, usually toiling in small, private workspaces. Usually one individual, occasionally several "skilled" individuals, would make a product one unit at a time. This process was used for thousands of years prior to the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution brought literally thousands of workers off the farms and into the urban areas to work in factories. Occurring first in Europe during the eighteenth century, it spread later to the United States. The changes to manufacturing and society were brought about by a handful of people who developed methods of making products from interchangeable parts by using machinery to better led
labor and "processes" which would help to achieve a better order of repeatability in the finished product.
Throughout the nineteenth century, industrial development continued to expand and become more sophisticated. Naturally, new and improved organizational methods became necessary. A "Scientific Management" movement (Maskell, 1994, p. 41) developed in the latter par...