Assessment of manufacturing flexibility

Ruchi Mishra, Ashok K. Pundir and L. Ganapathy

Management Research Review, 2014, vol. 37, issue 8, 750-776

Abstract: Purpose - – The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of all the enablers of manufacturing flexibility and to provide a path for future research in the area of manufacturing flexibility. Design/methodology/approach - – Research papers were collected from electronic databases to search academic journals dealing with manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty, business strategy, organizational attributes, technology, innovation and product types. The study consists of a systematic review of 101 research papers and assessment of these papers in terms of their role in enabling flexibility. Findings - – It is seen from the literature review that most of the research in the field of flexibility was done in developed countries, and further empirical research with respect to manufacturing flexibility and firm performance is required to be done in developing countries. It is also seen that financial performance has often been used in many of the studies as a proxy to measure firm performance and one can explore alternative metrics for firm performance. The review reveals that an integrated framework to assess manufacturing flexibility and firm performance is largely missing in literature. This review highlights some research gaps for future research in the area of manufacturing flexibility. Research limitations/implications - – The literature review was done using search terms restricted to manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty, business strategy, organizational attributes, technology, innovation and product types. There may be various unexploited areas for future research in terms of indirect influence of several different variables. The proposed framework is only conceptual in nature and thus requires rigorous empirical testing to develop a comprehensive list of enablers and their respective criteria and attributes. Originality/value - – The study synthesizes existing literature for assessing manufacturing flexibility in an organization and addresses gaps in the research area of manufacturing flexibility. It provides a comprehensive review of all relevant studies from 1992 to January 2013 for the use of both academicians and practitioners.

Keywords: Literature review; Assessment; Measurement; Performance; Environmental uncertainty; Manufacturing flexibility; Enablers of flexibility; Drivers of flexibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:mrrpps:v:37:y:2014:i:8:p:750-776

DOI: 10.1108/MRR-03-2013-0055

Access Statistics for this article

Management Research Review is currently edited by Dr Jay Janney and Prof Lerong He

More articles in Management Research Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().