One of the greatest challenges facing today’s companies is the need to respond to the ever-increasing level of order volatility. For various reasons, product and technology life cycles are shortening, and competitive pressure forces much more frequent product changes and customer requirements to a much greater extent than ever before. To meet this challenge, companies need to focus their efforts on achieving greater agility, one that can respond in shorter time frames in terms of volume changes and type changes. In other words, there is a need to modify production faster to meet market requirements and to switch it instantly from one variant to another. A truly agile business does not view order volatility as a problem, and its processes, organizational structure, as well as its supply chain relationships, enable it to handle any requirements in this regard. Agility in the sense of the ability to respond to supply and demand is not necessarily synonymous with “leanness”. Much has been written about lean manufacturing – often in relation to the automotive industry. The lean approach to manufacturing seeks to minimize component inventory and “work in progress” and move towards a “just in time” environment wherever possible. However, while “leanness” can be an element of agility in certain circumstances, the lean methodology alone does not enable companies to respond significantly faster to specific customer needs.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 6/2004.