Original scientific paper
Assuring the Competitiveness of European Manufacturer through Changeability in Manufacturing
Thorsten Blecker
; Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
Gunter Graf
; University of Klagenfurt, Austria
Abstract
Changeability has become a buzzword for operations management, especially in German literature. Therefore, we analyse this concept in comparison with existing concepts ror yariability, such as flexibility and agility, Agility is an enterprise-wide concept incorporating product design as well as manufacturing systems design and aiming at lean and often dislocated manufacturing processes. Flexibility means that an operation system is variably within a specific combination of in-, out and throughput. Changeability, in contrast, means the ability ofan operation system to autonomously alter the configuration to meet new, prior unknown demands e. g. from the market. Changeability is then the ability to realise new states of the in-, out-and throughput. Additionally, the reconfiguration of the system has to be realised as quickly as the environmental changes. Therefore, to be changeable, the speed of adaptation is important.
Keywords
changeability; operations system; competitive advantage; strategic resource
Hrčak ID:
101276
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2004.
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