Chapter: Automation, Production Systems, and Computer Integrated Manufacturing : Lean Production and Agile Manufacturing
Lean Production and Agile Manufacturing
27. Lean
Production and Agile Manufacturing
CHAPTER
CONTENTS
Lean Production
Agile
Manufacturing
Market Forces and Agility
Reorganizing the Production System for Agility
Managing Relationships for Agility
Agility Versus Mass Production
Comparison
of Lean and Agile
Two new
systems of doing business in manufacturing have evolved in recent decades: lean
production and agile manufacturing. One might argue that these new systems
represent paradigm shifts from mass production. Lean production can be traced
to the 19605 in Japan, when Toyota Motors started innovating changes in mass
production to deal with its domestic automotive market. The term "lean
production" was coined around 1989 with the popularity of the book, The Machine that Changed the World,
written by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Agile manufacturing originated from a research study at Lehigh University in
the early 1990s.This study attempted to peer into the future to answer the
question: What things would successful manufacturing companies be doing in 15
years? What they discovered was that successful companies were already doing these things.
We
identify lean and agile as "new systems of doing business." They have
their ori· gins in manufacturing. However, as we shall see in the present
chapter, lean and agile prin
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