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Keywords Agile production, Australia, Manufacturing
Abstract This paper analyses results from a survey of 962 Australian manufacturing companies in order to identify some of the factors critical for successful agile organizations in managing their supply chains. Analysis of the survey results provided some interesting insights into factors differentiating "more agile" organizations from "less agile" organizations. "More agile" companies from this study can be characterized as more customer focused, and applying a combination of "soft" and "hard" methodologies in order to meet changing customer requirements. They also see the involvement of suppliers in this process as being crucial to their ability to attain high levels of customer satisfaction. The "less agile" group, on the other hand, can be characterized as more internally focused with a bias toward internal operational outcomes. They saw no link between any of the independent variables and innovation, and appear to see technology as more closely linked to the promotion of these operational outcomes than to customer satisfaction. The role of suppliers for this group is to support productivity and process improvement rather than to promote customer satisfaction.
Introduction
The requirement for organizations to become more responsive to the needs of customers, the changing conditions of competition and increasing levels of environmental turbulence is driving interest in the concept of "agility". What it really means for an organization to be "agile", as opposed to just being efficient, effective, lean, customer-focused, able to add value, quality-driven, proactive rather than reactive, etc., has been the source of considerable debate and academic conjecture. Christopher (2000) makes a clear distinction between speed (meeting customer demand in the context of shortened delivery lead times), leanness (doing more with less) and agility (responding quickly to changes in demand in terms of both volume and variety). Naylor et al. (1999, p. 108) go further in stating that:
Agility means using market knowledge and a virtual corporation to exploit profitable opportunities in a volatile marketplace.
The notion of agility is therefore recognized to be holistic rather than functional, and of strategic rather than tactical importance. The concept has also been extended beyond the traditional boundaries of the individual organization to encompass the operations of the supply chain within which the organization operates. The effectiveness of an organization's response...