DESSAC: a decision support system for quantifying and analysing agility

Abstract

This paper traces the origin and development of agile manufacturing. The industrial sectors which have embraced agility are today's winners in the competitive markets. This situation warrants the need of assessing the activities to be undertaken to acquire agility. For this purpose, this paper advocates the adoption of a 20 criteria agile model. In order to implement this model effectively, the agility level at which a company currently operates needs to be quantified. For this purpose, a quantification model incorporated with the 20 criteria agile model was adopted from literature and proposed after refinement. Applying this refined quantifying model in real time practice is a time consuming and tedious process. In order to overcome this difficulty, a decision support system named DESSAC (DEcision Support System for quantifying Agile Criteria) was developed. DESSAC was demonstrated to a group of competent personnel of an electronics switch manufacturing company situated in India. These personnel could operate DESSAC without any difficulty. Their feedback indicated its practical feasibility. In conclusion this paper points out the limitations of this research and the scope for pursuing further researches to overcome them.

Keywords:

• Agile manufacturing
• Lean manufacturing
• Decision support system
• Implementation study
• Team building

Acknowledgements

The contributions of Dr G. Ramesh, Principal, Maharaja Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India and Mr R. Karthik, Mr V. Yogeshwaran, Mr S. Mohanraj, Mr S. Vishnu, the past Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering students of PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India towards the development of the first version of agile quantification model mentioned in this paper are acknowledged. The comments made by the anonymous referees, Guest Editor and the Chief Editor of IJPR have been used to improve the presentation and organization of the paper. They are thanked in this regard.