Research Summary
Research Summary
Flexibility in Manufacturing Systems
Description
David M. Upton has examined the management of flexibility in manufacturing systems. Although flexibility has become an issue of critical competitive importance in a growing number of industries, it remains an ill-understood concept. The broad use of the term and its attendant ambiguity pose formidable obstacles to the effective management of flexibility. Moreover, the sources of flexibility are not well understood, rendering its implementation difficult. Upton has developed, from a sixty-plant study of why some plants are more flexible than others, a conceptual structure to guide managers' decisions about the types of flexibility they need. Having identified the key structural and infrastructural factors that affect flexibility, he has also established what makes some plants perform even better than his models would predict and has extended his study to 150 plants worldwide.