Agility, The Future for Ceramic Manufacturing

Abstract

Recently, Lehigh University facilitated seminars to define manufacturing needs for the 21st century. The attending executives from 77 firms, including General Motors, FMC, and Alcoa, concluded that the future will be characterized by rapid changes in technology advances, customer demands, and shifts in market dynamics, and coined the term “agile manufacturing.” Agile manufacturing refers to the ability to thrive in an environment of constant unpredictable change. In an agile environment, market opportunities are attacked by partnering to form virtual firms to dynamically obtain the required skills in relatively short time for each product opportunity. We will describe and compare agile and traditional concepts of organization and structure, management policy and ethics, employee environment, product focus, information, and paradigm shift. Examples of agile manufacturing applied to ceramic materials are presented.