Agile manufacturing: The implications for technology strategy - A British perspective

Manufacturing companies operate in an increasingly volatile business environment. Business success will be attained by the company that can constantly reorganize its human and technical resources to deliver improved products and services before its rivals. Agility is becoming the critical success factor for manufacturing companies in the late 1990s. This paper is concerned with the creation of an agile manufacturing enterprise. The role of information management in an agile manufacturing company is examined and some of the pitfalls are highlighted. The paper then analyses a popular information management strategy adopted by British companies to facilitate their transformation into agile manufacturing enterprises.