Analysing Barriers in Agile Manufacturing

Abstract: - The agile manufacturing (AM) is a powerful way to differentiate a company from its competitors and it can greatly influence the plan success. Efficient utilization of advanced manufacturing technology is usually seen as one of the crucial factors in achieving competitiveness on global markets. On the other hand, there are many problems associated with the advanced technology utilization. In 21st century, Manufacturing companies are facing rapid and unanticipated changes in their business environment. In order to function effectively within this environment, manufacturers have trying to apply a variety of principles; one of these principles is agile manufacturing and incorporating the concepts of agility. However, adoption of agile manufacturing is not an easy task with barriers existing throughout its life cycle, from development and implementation to its maintenance and improvement phases. Investigating agile manufacturing barriers is necessary to help understand and overcome them. The aim of this study is to identify various barriers to adopt agile manufacturing and to establish a relationship among the dimensions of barriers through the Interpretive Structural Modelling methodology (ISM). This is a well-established methodology for identifying and summarising relationships among specific items that define an issue or problem. Practical implications and future research directions are identified. Keywords: - agile manufacturing, barriers, interpretive structural modelling, ISM, agility. 1. Introduction: In 21st century businesses will have to overcome the challenges of demanding customers seeking high quality, low cost products, responsive to their specific and rapidly and variety of changing needs (Bunce and Gould, 1996). Agility can be defined manufacturing way that produces products and services by changing pattern of traditional operation. Agile manufacturing is a concept of fast response against the requirement of customer. Today, rapidly changing market conditions are requiring companies to shorten delivery cycles and become more responsive to customer expectations. Agile manufacturing is way that is used by manufacturing plant managers to improve operations capabilities. Agile manufacturing can be defined as the capability of surviving and prospering in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets, driven by customer-designed products and services (Gunasekran, 1999). Agility addresses new ways of running companies to meet. Agile manufacturing is a new concept in

manufacturing intended to improve the competitiveness of firms (Gunasekran, 1999). Agile manufacturing is a new expression that is used to represent the ability of a producer of goods and services to thrive in the face of continuous change. These changes can occur in markets, in technologies, in business relationships and in all facets of the business enterprise (Devor et al. 1997). Todays manufacturing survival and success became even more difficult than ever before. It is crucially important to follow up with a change much faster, otherwise there is a threat to stand in market. But, company have a capability to give fast response against the requirement of customer. The company is more prefer by customer other than any competitive. Agility in manufacturing can reduce material costs, work force, inventory, idle facility or machine time and improve material handling. While these are invisible to the customer, they do affect the overall cost, quality, and timing of a product that is very visible to the customer (Prasad, 1996). Agile or flexible production system is very much company or process focused; therefore, it is difficult to be duplicated by the competitors, since they often are not visible (Anuziene and Bargelis, 2007). 2. Literature Review: Rapidly changing market conditions are requiring companies to shorten delivery cycles and become more responsive to customer expectations. Agile development methodologies are leading the way, helping development teams adjust to the new economy. The manufacturing processes based on agile manufacturing are characterized by customer-supplier integrated process for product design, manufacturing, marketing, and support services (Gunasekaran, 1999). According to Cao and Dowlatshahi (2005) manufacturing companies are facing rapid and unanticipated changes in their business environment. They give the impact of alignment between virtual enterprise and information technology on business performance in an agile manufacturing environment. Devor et al. (1997) defined agile manufacturing as the ability of a producer of goods and services to operate profitably in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change. Bustelo and Avella (2006), agility is a global response to changes imposed by a new business environment dominated by a set of forces that attempt to break with mass production systems and are characterized by change and uncertainty. The author identify four dimensions or foundational elements of agile manufacturing, those are as enriching the customer, cooperating to enhance competitiveness, mastering change and uncertainty and leveraging the impact of people and information. Bottani (2010) performs on enabler of agile manufacturing an extensive analysis of the degree of attainment of agile

attributes and of implementation of agile enablers. Shen (1996) focused on the importance of diamond coated tool for agile manufacturing and also with dry machining. Zhang (2011) states that the concept of agility is widely accept in the manufacturing industry as a new competitive market. However, how to develop a manufacturing strategy based around agility is not fully understood. The taxonomy suggested the existence of three basic types of agility strategies: quick, responsive, and proactive. Agile manufacturng is a systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of product and their related processes, including manufacture and support. It is a profitable approach for reducing the development time and manufacturing cost and in parallel improves the quality of a product to meet customer demands (Ranga and Dwivedi, 1997). Agile manufacturing aims to meet the changing market requirements by suitable alliances based on core-competencies, by organizing to manage change and uncertainty, and by leveraging people and information. Automotive industrys goals of operating profitably, sensing and responding effectively to changing demand trends. They also suggests that agile manufacturing systems will permit fast cost-effective responses to unpredictable and everchanging product demand, and support rapid product launches for previously unplanned products tailored to meet changing customer desires. During the evolution, researchers and practitioners have continually improved methods of manufacturing processes to adopt any new product in market. Some authors and researchers defines agile manufacturing is an organization that has created the processes, tools, and training to enable it to respond quickly to customer needs and market changes while still controlling costs and quality. The agile manufacturing is a way of a). Delivers value to the customer; b). Being ready for change; c). Valuing human knowledge and skills; d). Forming virtual partnerships. There are a number of research reports available in the literatures those discuss the concept of agile manufacturing. All discussed authors define the agile manufacturing in different ways and gives their view about this concept (Mishra et al. 2012, Gunasekran, 1998, 1999, Gunasekaran and Yusuf, 2002, Ravi and Shankar 2004).

2.1 Definition of Agile Manufacturing: Devor and Mills (1995): Agile manufacturing is an ability to thrive in a competitive environment of continuous and unanticipated change and to respond quickly to rapidly changing markets driven by customer-based valuing of products and services. Gupta and Mittal (1996): Agile stresses the importance of being highly responsive to meet the `total needs of the customer, while simultaneously striving to be lean. Agile places a higher priority on responsiveness than cost-efficiency while a manufacturer whose primary goal is to be lean compromises. Gunasekaran and Yusuf (1999): Agile manufacturing is capability for surviving and prospering in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets. Gunasekaran et al. (2002): Agile manufacturing is a new expression that is used to represent the ability of a producer of goods and services to survive in the face of continuous change. These changes can occur in markets, technologies, business relationships and all other facets of the business enterprise. Elkinsa and Ningjian (2004): Agile manufacturing allowing companies to be capable of operating profitably in a competitive environment of continually and unpredictably changing customer opportunities. Anuziene and Bargelis (2007): Agile manufacturing is a concept of technologies and adjacent management techniques. (Hallgren and Olhager, 2009): Agile manufacturing is initiative that is used by manufacturing plant managers to improve operations capabilities. Al-Tahat and Bataineh, (2012): The Agile manufacturing is described as new technique of manufacturing. It emerged after lean production. It represents pattern shifts from mass production. It originated from manufacturing enterprise study that was conducted at Lehigh University in the early 1991. This paper aims on the barriers of agile manufacturing systems in any industry and tries to resolve those barriers of agile manufacturing so that easy to adopt this new concept in applications. Agile manufacturing helps in completing the continuous and unpredictable

change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets, driven by customer-defined products and services. The main objectives of this paper are as follows: To identify the barriers of agile manufacturing that creates restriction against its implementation. To assign the rank for barriers in transition from concurrent engineering to agile manufacturing. To establish relationships among these barriers using ISM. To discuss managerial implication of this research and suggest directions for future.

Here, we try to find the issues and barriers that help in understanding and appreciating the concepts, design and implementation of Agile Manufacturing Systems (AMS). These barriers will focus on the systems methodology approach for design and implementation of AMS. By resolving these barriers, it will help to develop the ideas and technologies for agile manufacturing as companywide strategies to reduce the lead times in all areas of manufacturing. The agile manufacturing reduces manufacturing costs, increase market share, satisfy the customer requirements, facilitate rapid introduction of new products, eliminate non-value added activities and increase manufacturing competitiveness. ISM is often used to provide fundamental understanding of complex situations as well as to put together a course of action for solving a problem (Mishra et al. 2012). 3. Identified barriers of agile manufacturing In this section, nine barriers have been identified through literature and questionnaire based survey and opinions of experts both five persons from industry and three persons from academia. With consultant and help of those persons, the barriers are found that offer resistance against the implementation of agile manufacturing in Indian manufacturing sheetmetal industries. After review of literature on agile manufacturing and the opinion of experts, both from industry and the academia, nine important barriers of agile manufacturing have been identified. The literature review, together with the experts opinion, was used in developing the relationship matrix, which is later used in the development of an ISM model. The

response collected from experts is on five-point Likert scale (Raj et al, 2009). It contained many issues regarding the implementation of agile manufacturing. The respondents were asked to indicate the level of difficulty in handling these barriers. On the Likart scale, one stands for very low and five for very high difficulty in handling these barriers. Through the responses of this experts opinion, different barriers in decreasing order of their significance have presented in Table 3.1. Table: 1 Rank for barriers of agile manufacturing Barriers of Agile manufacturing Human Factor Manufacturing lead Time Knowledge Management Value Chain Integration Concurrent Engineering High cost of Advance Technology Personnel training Requirement of alteration in process methodology Allocation of machine Mean Score 4.62 4.37 3.75 3.62 3.37 3.25 2.75 2.37 1.62 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Many practical problems like behavior of human being against any change comes, short manufacturing lead time, high investment of time and money in personnel training and late response of that investment, requirement of alteration in process methodology and allocation of machine are come in implementation of this manufacturing concept. From the literature survey and the experts opinion, nine barriers are identified which offer resistance against the implementation of agile manufacturing. These experts are industrialist and academician, industrialist having experience greater than ten years with customer. These nine barriers are human factor (HF), manufacturing lead time (MLT), knowledge management (KM), value chain integration (VCI), concurrent engineering (CE), high cost of advance technology (HCAT), personnel training (PT), requirement of alteration in process methodology (RAPM) and allocation of machine (AOM). 3.1. Human factor: - According to Sharifi (2001) employees are the key success factors with regard to responsiveness. Without any exception, the employees are considering not only as being capable of dealing with different working procedures, but also as the heart of the

company and a pool of ideas. With there any change, resistance must come against it. People typically do not like the unknown and tends to resist any type of organizational change (Gunasekaran, 1998, Gunasekaran and Yusuf, 2002). 3.2. Manufacturing lead time: - Short product delivery cycle (manufacturing lead time) is a time interval after place an order by customer to delivery time of product or services to the customer provided by manufacturer. After getting order, company should be liable to supply the product as demanded by customer. The Shorter lead time always creates problem in front of company by disturbing their hectic schedule (Mishra et. al 2012, Gunasekaran et al. 2002). 3.3. Knowledge management: - The Company stressed good information flow within the company as essential to achieve responsiveness. The transfer of any information, idea and knowledge is necessary for better development of company. The knowledge transfer is supported through the size of the company and that every employee knows where to find important information (Gunasekaran and Yusuf, 2002, Sharifi, 2001). 3.4. Value Chain Integration: - Value chain integration is the ability of a company to connect the different factors of the value chain into a coherent bundle (Christopher, 2000). This integration is done at three levels, namely the company, the customers and the suppliers. Company had a very close relationship to their employees and with customer and supplier (Gunasekaran, 1998, Cheng and Bateman, 2008). 3.5. Concurrent Engineering (CE): - The concurrent engineering is a systematic approach that contributes all teams includes with different expertise, such as design, manufacturing, quality assurance, purchasing, marketing, field service and support. For the betterment of company, all teams should be work together, so that they can give their maximum effort for company (Deshayes and Welsch, 2010, Gunasekaran, 1999). 3.6. High Cost of Advance Technology: - With manufacturing technologies and processes, small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) faced problem that their production is not automated, but rather relies strongly on conventional production machining facilities. Therefore, they arent concentrating on high investment for the machinery and assembly line. Shorter design cycles can be achieved by carefully managing the design process during rapid prototyping (Baldwin and Chung 1995).With production planning, the technologies of the company contained either traditional planning, and not fully integrated planning tools (Elkinsa, 2004).

3.7. Personnel training: - Agile manufacturing can be operated effectively with the help of knowledge workers. But, it is not clear yet what sort of training and education required to motivate the employees to take part in the development of agile manufacturing (Gunasekran, 1999, Bottani, 2010). 3.8. Requirement of alteration of process methodology: - To response rapidly against customer requirement, we have to change our schedule that constitutes a blend of people, planning, and risks that are balanced in perfect harmony. Acknowledging the culture shift we are asking people to undergo builds trust, create safety, and help us plan for how we are going to deal with one of the things most likely to derail your grand plans of agile transformation (Mishra et. al 2012, Gupta and Mittal, 1996). 3.9. Allocation of machine:-To get minimum processing time and minimum ideal time for all machines in system, the manager should have planned in such a way that this can be achieved accordingly. This can be resolve by mathematically formulation and solved with a solution procedure developed. This work is oriented for products with short manufacturing lead times (Sanchez and Nagi, 2001, Cheng and Bateman, 2008). 4. Overview of ISM ISM was first proposed by Warfield in 1973 to analyze the complex socioeconomic system. The ISM process transforms unclear, poorly articulated mental models or systems into visible, well-defined models useful for many purposes (Mishra et al. 2012). It is a method for developing hierarchy of system barriers to represent the system structure 4.1 The important characteristics of ISM methodology are as follows: This methodology is based on the judgement of group that decides whether and how the different barriers are related to each other. This methodology helps to impose order and direction on the complexity of relationship among the element of system. It is structural as on the basis of relationship an overall structure is extracted from the complex set of variables. It is a modeling technique as the specific relationships and overall structure are portrayed in a graphical model

4.2 The various steps involved in the ISM methodology are discussed as follows. Step 1.Identification of barriers: The elements of the system are identified which are relevant to the problem or issue and then achieved with a group problem-solving technique like brain storming sessions. Step 2.Contextual relationship: After identification of barriers in Step 1, a contextual relationship is identified among barriers with respect to which pairs of variables would be examined. After resolving the barrier set and the contextual relation, a structural selfinteraction matrix (SSIM) is prepared based on pair-wise comparison of barriers of the system under consideration. Step 3.The SSIM is transformed into a binary matrix called the initial reachability matrix by substituting V, A, X, O by 1 and 0 as per the following case. Step 4.The reachability matrix obtained in Step 3 is converted into the final reachability matrix by checking it for transitivity. The transitivity of the contextual relation is a basic assumption in ISM which states that: If element A is related to B and B is related to C, Then A is related to C. Step 5.The final reachability matrix thus obtained is converted into the canonical matrix format by arranging the elements according to their levels. Step 6.From the canonical matrix form of the reachability matrix, a directed graph is drawn by means of vertices or nodes and lines of edges and the transitive links are removed based on the relationships given above in the reachability matrix. The resultant digraph is converted into an ISM by replacing enabler nodes with statements. Step 7.Finally, the ISM model is checked for conceptual inconsistency and necessary modifications are incorporated. ISM is powerful technique, which has been applied by many researchers in different field. Ravi and Shankar, (2004) has employed ISM methodology to analyze of interaction among the barriers of reverse logistics. Jharkharia and Shankar, (2005) used the ISM methodology to analyze some of the important barriers of supply chain and has shown the inter-relationships of criteria and their levels. Raj et al. (2009) applied this methodology to analyze interaction between barriers of transition to flexible manufacturing system. Mishra et al. (2012) applied the ISM methodology to the drivers of agile manufacturing as per their Indian industry

experience and identified the key drivers using direct as well as indirect interrelationships amongst the drivers. Wang et al. (2008) used ISM methodology to analyze the interaction between barriers of energy saving in china. Raj et al. (2008) implement this methodology for enablers of flexible manufacturing system in Indian industries. 5 An ISM approach for modelling of barriers The various steps, which lead to the development of model, are illustrated below: 1. Structural self-interaction matrix: All identified barriers are placed according to their rank assign in rank table. The contextual relationship is made on the basis of literature survey and experts opinion and show by symbol V, A, X, O. V: for the relation from barrier i to barrier j (i.e., barrier i helps to alleviate barrier j) A: for the relation from barrier j to barrier i (i.e., barrier i alleviate by barrier j) X: for both direction relations (i.e., barriers i and j helps to alleviate each other) O: for no relation between the barriers (i.e., barriers i and j are unrelated) Table 2. Structural self interaction-matrix Barriers of Agile manufacturing 1.Human Factor 2.Manufacturing lead Time 3.Knowlegde Management 4.Value Chain Integration 5.Concurrent Engineering 6.High cost of Advance Technology 7.Personnel training 8.Requirement of alteration in process methodology 9.Allocation of machine 9 V A V V V V V V 8 V A V V X V X 7 V O V V V V 6 O O V V V 5 V A V X 4 V A V 3 V A 2 V

The following statement is explain like this : Barrier 1 influences barrier 2 (V). Barrier 2 will be influenced by barrier 5 (A).

Barrier 4 and 5 will influence each other (X). Barrier 2 and 6 are unrelated (O).

Based on this contextual relationship, the SSIM has been developed. The SSIM was based on the discussion with experts and that discussion is transform into contextual relation of barriers. SSIM has been finalised and it is presented in Table 5.1. 2. Reachability matrix: The SSIM has been converted into a binary matrix, called the initial reachability matrix by substituting V, A, X and O by 1 and 0 as per the case. The substitution of 1s and 0s are as per the following rules: If the (i, j) entry in the SSIM is V, the (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 1 and the (j, i) entry becomes 0. If the (i, j) entry in the SSIM is A, the (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 0 and the (j, i) entry becomes 1. If the (i, j) entry in the SSIM is X, the (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 1 and the (j, i) entry also becomes 1. If the (i, j) entry in the SSIM is 0, the (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 0 and the (j, i) entry also becomes 0. Table- 3. Initial reachability matrix Barriers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 5 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 6 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 7 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 8 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 9 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

The initial reachability matrix is represented into table 4.2. From this step, we get an initial reachability matrix that converted into final reachability by checking it for transitivity. The transitivity of the contextual relation is a basic assumption in ISM which states that: if A is related to B, B is related to C, and then A is related to C. Table-4 Final rachability matrix Barriers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dependence 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1* 1* 1 1 9 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 4 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1* 0 6 5 1 0 1 1 1 1* 1* 1 0 7 6 1* 0 1 1 1 1 0 1* 0 6 7 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 7 8 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 7 9 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 Driving Power 9 1 8 7 7 6 6 8 2

Level partition: The final reach ability matrix thus obtained is converted into the canonical matrix format by arranging the elements according to their levels. From the final reach ability matrix, the reachability and antecedent set for each barrier is found. Table-5 Partition of reachability matrix : 1st Iteration Barriers 1 2 3 4 5 Reachability set 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 2 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 2,4,5,6,7,8,9 2,4,5,6,7,8,9 Antecedent set 1 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 1,3 1,3,4,5,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 Intersection set 1 2 3 4,5,8 4,5,6,7,8 I Level

6 7 8 9

2,5,6,7,8,9 2,5,7,8,9 2,4,5,6,7,8,9 2,9

1,3,4,5,6,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

5,6,8 5,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 9

The reachability set consists of the element itself and the other elements which it may help to alleviate whereas the antecedent set consists of the element itself and the other elements which may help in alleviate it. Subsequently, the intersection of these sets is derived for each barrier. The intersection set is set of common elements from both reachability set and antecedent set. The barrier for which the reachability and the intersection sets are the same, they occupy the top level in the ISM hierarchy. The top level elements in the hierarchy would not help alleviate any other element above its own level. Table-6 Partition of reachability matrix : 2nd Iteration Barriers 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Reachability set 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 4,5,6,7,8,9 4,5,6,7,8,9 5,6,7,8,9 5,7,8,9 4,5,6,7,8,9 9 Antecedent set 1 1,3 1,3,4,5,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Intersection set 1 3 4,5,8 4,5,6,7,8 5,6,8 5,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 9 II Level

Table-7 Partition of reachability matrix : 3rd Iteration Barriers 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 Reachability set 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 3,4,5,6,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 5,6,7,8 5,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 Antecedent set 1 1,3 1,3,4,5,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 Intersection set 1 3 4,5,8 4,5,6,7,8 5,6,8 5,7,8 4,5,6,7,8 III III III Level

Once the top level element is identified, it is separated out from the other elements. Then, the same process is repeated to find out the elements in the next level. This process is continued until the level of each element is found. These levels help in building the diagraph and the final model. The level partitions in all iterations are shown in Tables 4, 5, 6 and 7. Having identified the level of elements, the relationship between elements is drawn with the help of an arrow. Table-8 Partition of reachability matrix : 4th Iteration Barriers 1 3 Reachability set 1,3 3 Antecedent set 1 1,3 Intersection set 1 3 Level V IV

The diagraph is shown in figure gives the information and hierarchy of elements of barriers. The top level element will not help to alleviate any other barrier. But next to that will help to alleviate the top level. So, every element of a particular level will help alleviate only elements of above level not elements of below level.

Figure 1 Diagraph showing the level of AMS barriers

In the diagraph, elements are shown in their assigning level. From the diagraph, converts the elements into statement, consequently the ISM-model is comes in the picture. It is found from ISM-model, human factor (Barrier 1) is a very significant barrier for the agile manufacturing in the Indian industries as it comes as the base of the ISM hierarchy. Manufacturing lead time (Barrier 2) is the agile manufacturing barrier on which the effectiveness of the agile manufacturing depends. This barrier has appeared at the top of the hierarchy.

Manufacturing lead time

Allocation of machine

Value Chain Integration

Concurrent Engineering

High cost of advance technology

Personnel training

Requirement of alteration in process methodology

Knowledge Management

Human factor

Figure 2 ISM-based model for Barriers of AMS 6 MICMAC Analysis The purpose of MICMAC analysis is to analyze the drive power and dependence power of barriers. The variables are classified into four clusters. 1. Autonomous barriers: These are the barriers which have weak drive power and weak dependence. These barriers are relatively disconnected from the system, with which they have few links.

2 Dependent barriers: This category includes those barriers which have weak drive power but strong dependence power. 3 Linkage barriers: These are the barriers which have strong drive power as well as strong dependence. These barriers are unstable. Any action on them will have an effect on others and also a feed back effect on themselves. 4 Independent barriers: They have strong drive power but weak dependence power. It is generally observed that a barrier with a very strong drive power, called the key barrier falls into the category of independent or linkage barriers. The above classification is similar to that done by Raj et al., (2009) and Mishra et al., (2012). Driving power 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I II 9 2 8 9 Dependence 1 IV 3 4 6 III 8 5 7

Figure 3 The driving power and dependence diagram 7 Conclusion One of the major objectives of this study was to identify the barriers that significantly affect the implementation of agile manufacturing in Indian sheet-metal vendor industry so that management may effectively deal with these barriers. Manufacturing firms can improve agility capabilities if agility providers are identified and implemented in various areas of manufacturing such as organization, technology, people and innovation. The integration of these four areas is required to provide agility capabilities in order to effective address various issues related to competition arising from market place. This study has some other implications for the practicing managers. The identified barriers need to be overcome by the

management of the agile adapt companies. The driver power dependence diagram gives some valuable insights about the relative importance and interdependencies of the barriers. The managerial implications as emerging from this study are: The driver power dependence figure indicates that there is no barrier in autonomous variables in the agile manufacturing. Autonomous variables are weak drivers and weak dependents and do not have much influence on the system. The absence of autonomous variable (barrier) in this study indicates that there is no consideration towards this category barrier. From driver power and dependence figure it is observed that barrier number two and nine, namely as manufacturing lead time and allocation of machine are weak drivers but strongly dependent on the other barriers. Both two barriers are at top-level in the ISM hierarchy, therefore considered as the important barriers. There are five barriers namely value chain integration, concurrent engineering, cost of advance technology, personnel training and Requirement of alteration in process methodology are the linkage variables and have strong driver power as well as strong dependence. Therefore, these form the middle level of the model. Though the lower level barriers induce these barriers, these also have some driver power to influence some other barriers, which are at the top of the model. The regular joint meetings of the supply chain partners, conferences and workshops on the agile manufacturing may help in overcoming these barriers. From figure it is observed that three barriers namely human factor and knowledge management have strong driver power and are less dependent on other barriers. Therefore, these are strong drivers and may be treated as the root causes of all the barriers. At the end, it would be interesting to examine the scope of future research. In this research, through ISM, a relationship model among the barriers has been developed. This model has been developed on the basis of input from two sources: (1) Discussion with the experts as suggested in the ISM technique; and (2) Results of an experts opinion.

References [1] AL-Tahat Mohammad D. and Bataineh Khaled M., (2012), Statistical Analyses and Modelling of the Implementation of Agile Manufacturing Tactics in Industrial Firms Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 23. [2] Anuziene L. and Bargelis L., (2007), Decision support system framework for agile manufacturing of mechanical products ISSN, MECHANIKA, 3, 1392 1207. [3] Baldwin R. A. and Chung M. J., (1995), A formal approach to managing design processes computer, IEEE computer society, 28, 54-63. [4] Bustelo Daniel V. and Avella L., (2006), Agile manufacturing: Industrial case studies in Spain, Technovation 26, 11471161. [5] Bottani Eleonora, (2010) Profile and enablers of agile companies: An empirical investigation International Journal of Production Economics 125, 251-261. [6] Bunce P. and Gould P., (1996), From Lean to Agile Manufacturing, IEE Colloquium, 278, 14-34. [7] Christopher M., (2000), The Agile Supply Chain: Competing in Volatile Markets . Industrial Marketing Management, 29, 37 44. [8] Cao Q. and Dowlatshahi S., (2005), The impact of alignment between virtual enterprise and information technology on business performance in an agile manufacturing environment, Journal of Operations Management 23, 531550. [9] Cheng Kai and Bateman Richard J., (2008), e-Manufacturing: Characteristics, applications and potentials Advanced Manufacturing & Enterprise Engineering. Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK, 18, 1323-1328. [10] Cottmeyer M. and Henson V. Lee, (2006), The Agile Business Analyst, versionone simplifying software delivery. [11] Dahmardeh N. and Banihashemi S. Ali, (2010), Organizational Agility and Agile Manufacturing European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences ISSN 23, 1450-2275. [12] Devor R., Graves R. and Mills J. J., (1997), Agile manufacturing research: Accomplishments and opportunities, IIE Transactions 29, 813-823.

[13] Devor R., and Mills J. J., (1995), Agile Manufacturing. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Manufacturing Engineering Division, MED, 2, 977. [14] Deshayes L. and Welsch L., (2005), Robust Optimization for Smart Machining System: an Enabler for Agile Manufacturing. ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, [15] Elkinsa Debra A., Huanga Ningjian and Laden Jeffrey M., (2004) Agile manufacturing systems in the automotive industry International Journal of Production Economics 91, 201 214. [16] Gunasekaran A., (1998), Agile manufacturing: enablers and an implementation framework. International Journal of Production Research, 36, 1223-1247. [17] Gunasekaran A., (1999) Agile manufacturing: A framework for research and development Int. J. Production Economics 62, 87-105. [18] Gunasekaran A., Tirtiroglu E. and Wolstencroft V., (2002), An investigation into the application of agile manufacturing in an aerospace company, 22, 405-415. [19] Gunasekaran A. and Yusuf Y. Y., (2002), Agile manufacturing: a taxonomy of strategic and technological Imperatives International Journal of Production Research, 40, 1357-1385. [20] Gupta and Mittal, (1996), Quality, time, and innovation based performance measurement system for agile manufacturing. Proceedings-Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute 3, 1511-1513. [21] Hallgren M., Olhager Jan, (2009), Lean and agile manufacturing: external and internal drivers and performance outcomes International Journal of Operations & Production Management 29, 976-999. [22] Jharkharia S. and Shankar R., (2005), IT-enablement of supply chains: understanding the barriers The Journal of Enterprise Information Management 18, 11-27. [23] Kusiak A. and He D.W., (1997), Design for agile assembly: An operational perspective, International Journal of Production Research, 35, 157-178. [24] Mishra S., Datta S. and Mahapatra S.S., (2012), Interrelationship of drivers for agile manufacturing: an Indian experience. International Journal Services and Operations Management, 11, 35-48.

[25] Prasad B., (1996), concurrent engineering fundamental integrated: process organization Prentice Hall PTR New Fersy.

product and

[26] Raj T., Shankar R. and Suhaib M., (2009) An ISM approach to analyze interaction between barriers of transition to Flexible Manufacturing System International Journal Manufacturing Technology and Management, 415-436. [27] Raj T., Shankar R. and Suhaib M., (2008), An ISM approach for modeling the enablers of flexible manufacturing system: the case for India International Journal of Production Research, 46, 68836912. [28] Ranga P., Dwivedi S.N., (1997), Research Issues in Responsive and Agile Manufacturing. [29] Ravi V. and Shankar R., (2004), Analysis of interactions among the barriers of reverse logistics, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 16697, 1-19. [30] Sanchez L. M. and Nagi R., (2001), A review of agile manufacturing systems International Journal of Production Research, 39, 3561-3600. [31] Sharifi, (2001), Agile manufacturing in practice: Application of a methodology. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 21, 772 794. [32] Shen C. H., (1996), The importance of diamond coated tools for agile manufacturing and dry machining, Surface and Coatings Technology, 86, 672-677. [33] Singh R.K. and Garg S. K., (2006), Competitive analysis of a medium scale organization in India, International journal of global business and competitiveness, 27-40. [34] Wang G., Wang Y. and Zhao T., (2008), Analysis of interactions among the barriers to energy saving in China Energy Policy 36, 18791889. [35] Zhang David Z., (2011), Towards theory building in agile manufacturing strategies Case studies of an agility taxonomy International Journal Production Economics 131, 303 312.