Prioritization of Environmental Uncertainty and Manufacturing Flexibility for Labor-Intensive Industry: A Case Study on Ready-Made Garment Industries in Bangladesh

Manufacturing flexibility is a widely accepted manufacturing strategy for mitigating the negative impacts of environmental uncertainty on firm performance and is also a required strategic attribute to acclimatize mass customization and agile manufacturing. Manufacturing flexibility has been adequately studied for technology-intensive industries but remains inadequately addressed for labor-intensive industries. In this study, a framework is proposed for sorting the relevant manufacturing flexibility types for the relevant environmental uncertainty types as an initial step towards implementing manufacturing flexibility in labor-intensive industries. This study considered the RMG (ready-made garment) industries in Bangladesh, which are mostly labor-intensive, as a case. Different types of manufacturing flexibility and environmental uncertainty were identified through a deductive approach from the existing literature and theory. Then, final sorting was conducted through a focus group discussion using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) techniques. This study revealed that demand, competitor, supplier, and technology uncertainty were ranked sequentially from first to fourth. This study also revealed that demand and competitor uncertainty would be the first-line focus, and supplier uncertainty the second-line focus, of decision makers. Similarly, new product, volume, workforce, and modification flexibility were ranked sequentially from first to fourth, and these would be considered first-line focuses by decision makers. This study also showed that all types of environmental uncertainties had an internal effect (one type affects another type within the types of environmental uncertainty). Internal effects among the different types of manufacturing flexibility were also identified. This study contributes to the theory of manufacturing flexibility for labor-intensive industries and will help decision makers gradually implement manufacturing flexibility based on their capacity and goal.

Narrowing the Gaps: Assessment of Logistics Firms’ Information Technology Flexibility for Sustainable Growth

In a supply chain management context, the effective management of Information Technology (IT) flexibility has been an issue to be resolved. However, no analytical method that calculates the required and actual level of IT flexibility dimensions has been proposed. This paper aims to provide an analytical tool that measures the required and actual levels of IT flexibility dimensions to provide the best value from a logistics firm’s IT flexibility. To do so, we propose a combined Importance‒Performance Analysis (IPA) and Partial Least Squared Structured Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) method based on a multidimensional IT flexibility model. By comparing industry-level data with client firm data, our method allows for effective identification of a client logistics company’s multiple IT flexibility gaps and indicates where particular management interventions are required. By proposing importance and performance as measurement scales, our research suggests an analytical tool that managers can utilize to assess IT flexibility and identify any gaps that exist between actual and required flexibility levels. This allows managers to effectively address areas that demand further attention. This approach also leads to an improved understanding of how organisations can extract the best value from their investment in IT flexibility to contribute to sustainable growth.

Scheduling Policies in Flexible Bernoulli Lines with Dedicated Finite Buffers☆

This paper is devoted to studying scheduling policies in flexible serial lines with two Bernoulli machines and dedicated finite buffers. Priority, cyclic and work-in-process (WIP)-based scheduling policies are investigated. For small scale systems, exact solutions are derived using Markov chain models. For larger ones, a flexible line is decomposed into multiple interacting dedicated serial lines, and iteration procedures are introduced to approximate system production rate. Through extensive numerical experiments, it is shown that the approximation methods result in acceptable accuracy in throughput estimation. In addition, system-theoretic properties such as asymptotic behavior, reversibility, and monotonicity, as well as impact of buffer capacities are discussed, and comparisons of the scheduling policies are carried out.

Flexibility of processes and e-governance performance

Purpose

– The existing government processes are often not able to cope-up with the dynamic context of e-governance due to their rigid character as reflected in the dismal performance of e-governance projects. In this article, flexibility of the key processes and e-governance performance have been analyzed based on six agriculture related projects in India. The analysis has brought out implications for researchers, practitioners and society.

Design/methodology/approach

– Based on a review of literature, new constructs have been proposed and hypothesis formulated to study flexibility of processes and performance of e-governance. The empirical part of the study involves an opinion survey of officers involved in planning of the identified projects. The proposed constructs have been validated based on reliability and confirmatory factor analysis and used further for statistical analysis and interpretation.

Findings

– The research has revealed that “flexibility of processes” is a predictor of “performance of e-governance”. The analysis has further reflected the need for reengineering of conventional processes by embedding “change mechanisms” in processes for improving e-governance performance.

Practical implication

– The findings of this article are expected to sensitize the government officials and other actors involved in the planning and implementation of e-governance projects to analyse the underlying processes from the perspective of flexibility and take measures for transforming the conventional rigid processes into versatile and adaptive processes by introducing change mechanisms. Such redesigned processes are expected to lead to better performance of e-governance initiatives.

Originality/value

– This paper attempts to address the gap with respect to the lack of measures for analysing the relationship between flexibility of processes and performance of e-governance projects. The article opens the door for further research in terms of defining additional constructs such as “changing situation” and “competence level of actors” and exploring their predictive relationships with “performance of e-governance”. The context-specific interpretations of validated linkages influencing performance shall provide the base for arriving at an empirically founded synthesized strategic framework for improving the performance of e-governance projects.

E-service flexibility: meeting new customer demands online

Purpose

– Business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic service (e-service) allows a company to decrease transaction costs, expedite delivery time, and serve more customers. Flexibility lets e-service providers improve their service without costly and time-consuming infrastructure overhauls to cope with the changing business environment. Little work has been done to associate flexibility with e-service. This paper aims to provide a conceptual taxonomy of e-service flexibility in line with the online purchase in a customer activity cycle (CAC), as well as a theoretical model to investigate the relationships among a company's internal flexibility, e-service flexibility, customer readiness and firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach

– Based on an extensive review of e-service and flexibility literature, the paper develops a taxonomy of B2C e-service flexibility in a CAC framework and a conceptual model to show the influence e-service flexibility exerts on firm performance and the factors that support e-service flexibility.

Findings

– This research identifies the important e-service flexibility in each CAC stage, discusses the influence of e-service flexibility on firm performance and an organization's internal flexibility supporting e-service flexibility, and argues that customer readiness has an important influence on firm performance as well.

Research limitations/implications

– The conceptual model of e-service flexibility and propositions need further empirical validation.

Practical implications

– This paper should help managers identify the critical e-service flexibility that satisfies their customers and the core internal flexibility that supports flexible e-service. It should help managers consider customer limitations when developing e-service flexibility.

Originality/value

– This research sets some theoretical and research foundation for future empirical studies. First, the research provides a conceptual definition of e-service flexibility in line with the CAC. Based on the definition, measurements of e-service flexibility in each stage of CAC could be developed and the e-service flexibility construct could be validated. Second, the conceptual model outlines the relationships between a company's internal flexibility, e-service flexibility, customer readiness, and firm performance. The theoretical model provides the foundation for empirically testing the influences of interactions between a company and their customers on firm performance.

SYFSA: a framework for systematic yet flexible systems analysis

Although technological or organizational systems that enforce systematic procedures and best practices can lead to improvements in quality, these systems must also be designed to allow users to adapt to the inherent uncertainty, complexity, and variations in healthcare. We present a framework, called Systematic Yet Flexible Systems Analysis (SYFSA) that supports the design and analysis of Systematic Yet Flexible (SYF) systems (whether organizational or technical) by formally considering the tradeoffs between systematicity and flexibility. SYFSA is based on analyzing a task using three related problem spaces: the idealized space, the natural space, and the system space. The idealized space represents the best practice-how the task is to be accomplished under ideal conditions. The natural space captures the task actions and constraints on how the task is currently done. The system space specifies how the task is done in a redesigned system, including how it may deviate from the idealized space, and how the system supports or enforces task constraints. The goal of the framework is to support the design of systems that allow graceful degradation from the idealized space to the natural space. We demonstrate the application of SYFSA for the analysis of a simplified central line insertion task. We also describe several information-theoretic measures of flexibility that can be used to compare alternative designs, and to measure how efficiently a system supports a given task, the relative cognitive workload, and learnability.

LINKING MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS TO MANUFACTURING STRATEGY IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Dealing with change is an essential capability for manufacturing systems. In this paper, we reviewed 30 different kinds of manufacturing systems and identified four common approaches in how they deal with change, i.e. modularity, autonomy, distribution, and integration. We conducted a survey of Chinese manufacturing firms and used regression analysis to find relationships between their competitive priorities and the four approaches. The results provide some useful explanations regarding how a firm's emphases on the approaches in its manufacturing systems are influenced by its competitive priorities. Utilizing linkages between the approaches and competitive priorities, we developed a framework for matching manufacturing systems with manufacturing strategy in an environment filled with change and uncertainty.