Agile product development process transformation to support advanced one-of-a-kind manufacturing

Abstract

Increased competition in the global market has forced companies to diversify their product ranges to meet the customers' changing needs and adopt product development strategies for mass customization or even one-of-a-kind production, which inevitably requires designing modular products. Product modularity is achieved via platform-based systems, in which various combinations of different modules are assembled within a common platform. The smart factories that are already beginning to appear to employ a completely new approach to product creation. In smart industry, dynamic business and engineering processes enable last-minute changes to design and production, delivering the ability to respond flexibly to disruptions and failures on behalf of suppliers. This paper presents a case study of product development and design process renovation according to agile and lean principles in one-of-a-kind industrial environments. It defines how changeability integrates with robust, concurrent and smart design strategies. Introduction of agility to highly individualized production environments is mostly about enhancing the robustness of new product development processes. Product development and manufacturing processes are interconnected therefore they need to be re-engineered together. The presented work aims to deliver a generalized conceptual framework that demonstrates how companies in such specific environments can improve smartness and profitability through the utilization of agility concepts.

Understanding Agile Innovation Management Adoption for SMEs

“…Such challenges and external threats can also encompass the adoption of new systems and technologies [9]. The agile process offers one such solution through customer-focused product development [10]. Despite software development being the initial idea of agile methods, crowdsourcing and the internet of things provide new opportunities for development [11].…”

An empirical investigation of the relationship among agile manufacturing practices and business performance: a pilot study

“…They found that agile manufacturing model has better performance outcomes in comparison with others. Agile manufacturing has emerged as a new approach to planning and conducting manufacturing activities by efficiently connecting the available resources (Varl et al, 2020). Butcher (2007) mentioned that RFID implementation improves supply chain agility and helps in minimizing inventory holding leading to better stock management and reduced error in product data handling.…”

“…Technology has evolved as the most critical success factor of the agile manufacturing implementation (Dubey and Gunasekaran, 2015). Seamless data Agile manufacturing practices and business communication well supported by software and hardware is the key to success in gearing up the business to keep pace with accelerating environmental dynamics and meet customer demands (Vazquez-Bustelo et al, 2007;Varl et al, 2020). Speed is the by-product of flexible organizational structure and up-to-date technology acquisition (Van Assen et al, 2000;Khatri et al, 2016).…”

“…Structural redesign and introduction of new marketing strategies incorporated with continuous innovations in product and service will surely lead to agility (Routroy et al , 2015; Mittal et al , 2017; Venugopal and Saleeshya, 2019). The job of an agile manufacturer is not merely to frequently introduce new products, but to come up with an effective and efficient solution to customer’s desires by sensing the current and future customer’s needs (Varl et al , 2020). Agile manufacturing positively impacts organizational performance in terms of cost, quality, delivery and flexibility and market share (Vazquez-Bustelo et al , 2007; Nabass and Abdallah, 2019; Khalfallah and Lakhal, 2020).…”

A New Product Development Model for SMEs: Introducing Agility to the Plan-Driven Concurrent Product Development Approach

“…Combining APM and concurrent product development elements has also been recognized as a promising solution for advanced mass customization and one-of-a-kind production [52]. The study of Varl et al showed that such a combination can result in great direct savings (reduced time to market, rework, man-hours, etc.)…”