Addressing the Agile Manufacturing Impediments using Interpretive Structural Modeling

Abstract

Agile manufacturing (AM) has achieved tremendous remembrance by the organizations to beat the uncertainties resulting from rapidly change market, shortening product life cycle, varying customer demand and obsolete technologies. AM is adopted as a new concept to improve the competitiveness of different organizations ranging from manufacturing sector to service sector. However, in reality, many organizations have been facing lots of problems during the implementation of AM due to some environment specific impediments. The AM implementation process is getting delayed without the efforts of addressing the root cause of Agile Manufacturing Impediments (AMIs). These AMIs have its deep roots along various tangible and intangible issues of the organizations. Therefore, an organization needs to target the appropriate AMIs as putting efforts on all AMIs is not feasible. In this paper, a methodology is proposed using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) integrated with Fuzzy Matriced Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliqueeaun Classement (FMICMAC) algorithm for systematic analysis of impediments of AM. To demonstrate its practicality, a case study was conducted in an Indian automobile manufacturing company.