Disentangling leanness and agility: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Manufacturing plant managers have sought performance improvements by adhering to the guiding principles of leanness and agility. Lean manufacturing and agile manufacturing paradigms have also received considerable attention in operations management literature. However, paradoxically, the extant literature is lacking in clarity and fails to delineate with sufficient precision how and why leanness and agility differ. Given the resource constraints within which most manufacturing firms have to operate today, it is useful, if not critical, to develop a good understanding of how these paradigms differ and what their constituent dimensions are. Such an understanding is also essential for developing and testing theories relating to leanness and agility.Through a literature review we discuss leanness and agility in two ways: (1) as manufacturing paradigms and (2) as performance capabilities. Our empirical study attempts to determine whether lean and agile forms occur with any degree of regularity in manufacturing plants. The results confirm the existence of homogeneous groups that resemble lean and agile performing plants, and they identify important differences pertaining to their constituent performance dimensions. The results indicate that while the pursuit of agility might presume leanness, pursuit of leanness might not presume agility. While the performance capability differences across the empirically derived groups accord well with expected differences across plants that excel in leanness and agility, the practice differences across the groups are not as clearly distinguished. We discuss the implications of our findings for further research and theory development. #

Organizational Agility Conceptual Model

“…By synthesizing existing technologies and production methods (Goldman et al, 1995), combining managerial and manufacturing tools (Sharifi & Zhang, 2001) with the help of people and processes organizations are able to reach agility. Literature often confuses definitions of organizational agility and manufacturing agility, due to mixing performance outcomes and manufacturing processes (Narasimhan et al, 2006). Researchers conceptually differentiate organizational agility -a performance capability, from agile manufacturing systemscluster of related practices (Attafar et al, 2012).…”

Job design under lean manufacturing and the quality of working life: a job demands and resources perspective

“…The precise meaning of lean manufacturing has alternated within both academia and popular discourse. It has been defined as a system which is dedicated to minimising waste (Narasimhan, Swink & Kim, 2006), to buffer inventories and ensure system variability (de Treville & Antonakis, 2006), to one which simply implements certain practices such as Justin-Time (JIT) manufacturing (Gaither & Frazier, 2002). Consensus now exists that lean is a multidimensional approach to manufacturing which pursues added value at the strategic level and uses tools to eliminate waste at the operational level Hines, Holweg & Rich, 2004;Shah & Ward, 2003;.…”

Ranking of Leagility Factors Based on Job Satisfaction through a Combinatory Model of Fuzzy TOPSIS and AHP (Case Study: M.R.I Hospital, Shiraz, Iran)

“…During the last two decades, agility has been a key concept, having many of researchers discussing and giving ideas about it [10]. Narasimhan et al (2006) considers agility as the ability of effective and efficient change of the operational status in response and reaction to the uncertain and changing market conditions [11].…”