What is Agile Manufacturing?

Agile Manufacturing (AM), is a new concept of production method proposed by General Motors and Caspian University in 1991, and is used by the U.S. government as a manufacturing strategy for the 21st century. Agile Manufacturing is defined as a manufacturing system that responds quickly to the vagaries of market demand while meeting low cost and high quality.

The goal of agile manufacturing is to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace and provide marketable, environmentally friendly products to the market in the shortest possible time. Agile manufacturing emphasizes the flexible, advanced, practical manufacturing technology, skilled mastery of production technology capabilities, high-quality workers, as well as between and within the enterprise flexible management of the organic integration of the three, to achieve the overall optimization of the ever-changing market to make a rapid response. The basic idea of agile manufacturing is reflected in the following aspects:

(1) a new concept of enterprise. In order to complete a particular task, through the information superhighway on the network to find suitable designers and production collaboration enterprises, the establishment of a dynamic alliance - "virtual enterprise" or "virtual company ". This dynamic alliance *** with the responsibilities and obligations, *** with the risk, *** with the profit, once the specific task has been completed, the dynamic alliance and then disintegrate. The next time a new task comes along, a similar process of association and dissolution takes place.

(2) A new product concept. Product design using flexible and modular approach, so that constantly into the market product features and performance completely according to the customer needs to constantly change or improve, and requires the ability to quickly develop new products, that is, innovative design.

(3) a new management concept. Agile manufacturing streamlined organizational structure, advocating the "people" as the center, with decentralized decision-making instead of centralized control, with the negotiation mechanism instead of the "pyramid" structure of the control mechanism, the grass-roots organizations of agile enterprises is a multidisciplinary group, is task-centered, a dynamic Combination. Dynamic virtual companies can integrate domestic or worldwide resources to accomplish tasks in the shortest time, with the best quality, at a reasonable price, and with excellent service.

(4) A new concept of production. Agile manufacturing that the product cost has nothing to do with the batch, from the product is a single piece of production, but from the specific design and manufacturing sector, is mass production; emphasize that the enterprise must be completely serve the community, to comprehensively eliminate the adverse effects of corporate production may cause to the community.

Agile manufacturing enterprises than parallel engineering stage of the manufacturing enterprise has further development, more emphasis on enterprise alliance. cims to effectively support agile manufacturing, from the operation of the integration technology, it is necessary to develop a high-performance integration technology, can be without interrupting the operation of the system, the modification of the software system; to the outside of the enterprise, the development of the building on the basis of the network of integration technology, including Off-site formation of dynamic joint companies, off-site design, off-site manufacturing and other related integration technologies, the establishment of factory sub-networks in the information superhighway, and even the global enterprise network, as the main tool for dynamic integration.