Current Situation
Overview
Development in agile manufacturing is at different pace in different parts of the world. Since agility is giving corporations advantages over their competitors, it is seen as a way of competing and it is the way forward for many companies. The term 'agility' is not yet clear how companies define it, but this can be the key factor of success. The ones that figure out what implications of agility are and implicate them
successfully within their company may help them to gain the competitive edge.
USA
In the USA, agility is backed by the US president and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences and they are giving their support for this type of development of concepts, tools, methods and their transfer to US industry. Agility has been a talking point for a few years in the USA but although its exact definition is still being worked out, the boundaries are becoming clearer as the concepts are worked through.
Europe
In Europe, Agile is more of a new subject than other markets. There is a tendency in Europe to mix two types of manufacturing together, Lean manufacturing and Agile manufacturing. Germany is most probably the most county out of a few which understood holistically the idea of agile and has shown the greatest interest in this kind of manufacturing. In other countries, it has not yet set off and many responses where negative. This may be due to various reasons but partly reflects how difficult it is to get new ideas accepted and partly indicates that many have not yet seen the full potential of agile manufacturing. A European Agility Forum has been launched in order to help organizations to turn their businesses agile. This forum will start to:
- Monitor the developments in the field and inform European industries about the changes happening around the globe.
- Helps industrial executives and managers to understand the abstract concepts in Agility Manufacturing.
- Provide introductory awareness courses to enable industry to better understand and to implement it as fast and efficient as possible.
- Document methods and tools that will help the industry to implement Agility.