Research on Agility Implementation – The State-Of-The-Art and Future
Background Information
Agility implementation in the systems of manufacturing is one of the major significant objectives for manufacturing structures with considerations of the surrounding complexity (Khalgui, & Hanisch, 2011). Implementation of agility means that fresh aspects as well as the fresh affect that were no previously considered by the manufacturing structures theory. These, therefore, includes the energetic re-configurability of manufacturing systems, promotion, the emergence which are inherent aspects of agility and the necessity of resources integration outside the innovative manufacturing system. These aspects provide the necessities for a particular organizational framework and tools. Agility implementation is characterized by three distinct elements which are rational to transform, the transformation direction as well as how the particular transformation is to be achieved (Khalgui, & Hanisch, 2011).
Agility strategy gives the most significant and suitable leverages and practices of main business capability intelligence technology that is aimed at assisting in closing the gap that was created by previous technological and intelligence processes creation (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016). Agility strategy acts as the intelligence software which helps the enterprises in acquiring competitive advantage in the changing global market. Because of the turn of business operations, the manufacturing field has witnessed important environmental and structural transformations across the world. The developed international marketing and international outsourcing intensity concerns over the growing resources cost, quality issues and security of the international chain of supply networks, as well as energy, are amongst the main aspects of the fresh competitive business surroundings. Agility as an approach to manufacturing is purposed on providing businesses with competitive abilities to flourish from energetic and consistent changes in the world of enterprises and it has proven to be a prevailing approach but the general scope may have transformed with the situation (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016).
Agility as an approach to manufacturing gives bossiness the capability of capitalizing on consistent and dynamic transformations in the surrounding of the business both in a reactive and a proactive form. Agility approach utilizes distinct manufacturing methods in accomplishing its purpose as it is described as a holistic theory (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016). This research project is thus aimed at establishing the implementation of the agility strategy in the modern market, the utilized designs of the supply chain, management strategies, integration approaches that are utilized in supporting its implementation today as well as the future of the agility approach. The generated results of the research are expected to provide guidance as well as directions to the industry of manufacturing in its design, administration as well as continuous supply chain development currently and in the future.
Introduction
Agile manufacturing is described as a representation of interesting strategies that are aimed at developing a competitive advantage for the bossiness in the rapid growing market. The strategy places an extremely strong response and focus towards achieving satisfaction to the consumers through turning agility as well as speed into the major competitive advantage aspect (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016). A corporation that has adopted agile is in a better position to grab the emerging opportunities in the market as well as the rapid transformations of consumers demand. Agile strategy when implemented effectively turns to be efficient as it addresses the uncertainty issues directly. Uncertainty and transformations in the business are very crucial in determining the competitive capability of any business (Khalgui, & Hanisch, 2011). It is thus asserted that the most crucial role of any enterprise is developing strategies that may assist in managing the business uncertainties. This is thus referred to as an entrepreneurial task which generally involved the transformations search, changes responses as well as opportunities exploitations.
The agile strategy acknowledges the actualities of modern marketplace and changes them into the enterprise's competitive advantage. Since the enterprise world is changing very quickly it is therefore necessary to adopt an effective strategy. The set of factors that are affecting the business world today are bound to develop an increase in the future as they involve sets of financial, political and economic factors (Khalgui, & Hanisch, 2011). Future changes drivers include efficiency and cost changes. Agile manufacturing adoption is the best practice that is required. There is a necessity to administer the chains of supply more effectively and this involves the shift from being standardized to the adoption of differentiation and transforming the uncertainty degree in the business. In responding to the business changes that e there is a need for the enterprises to adopt and implement agile strategy more efficiently that Exists today and in the future. Agile strategy helps in equipping the business with corporate partners, differentiated product designs, a corporate culture with capability as well as information advancement.
The manufacturing industry arose in the market world during the early days when humans began to structure the natural accessible elements of the manufacturing business in fulfilling particular needs. One of the suitable ways of gaining responsiveness and flexibility in the manufacturing industry is through the implementation of agile strategy. Agility approach is described as the wide capability of the business that ensure that the structures of the organization, logistics information and information systems. There is a lot of information that exist in the definition of agility theory the surrounding themes but not an extensive literature exists on the agility implementation state of art as well as the future enhancement. Agile implementation and development has attracted attention in both research and practice field. The objective of this project’s literature review is to update, extend and validate prior reviews in regard to the general nature of agile implementation current and future state. Therefore this paper will seek to focus on a discussion of the practical agility implementation methodology currently and in the future with the utilization of literature reviews as well as agility implementation models in the industry of manufacturing.
Literature Review
Complex competitive scenarios had led to the growth of agility implementation attention which is being offered to consumer’s satisfaction because customized and timely products as well as services are the key theories to achieving competitiveness. As the cycle of products heightens the quality of the provided products and services and becomes the survivals necessity. Markets become diversified, globally in high forms and unexpected and consistent change becomes the main success factor. The necessity for an approach that is a cost-efficient and rapid strategy that considers design, market control and planning strategy has currently led to agility implementation in the manufacturing industry. Agility is described as the ability of surviving and prospering in a highly competitive market surrounding of consistent and unexpected transformation by responding in an effective and quick way with the drive of consumers products designs and services.
Agility Drivers and Descriptions
The early 21st century brought a lot of changes to the business world. Today the world is faced by important transformations in almost every aspect of the business and particularly technological innovations, changing demands from consumers as well as the level of competition in the market. Mass and global markets are ongoing to portion as consumers are rapidly and increasingly changing trends and as well as changing their general expectations in regard to services and products. The improvements have therefore caused major rebuilding’s or revisions of the priorities of business as well as approach vision.
Most of the corporation has thus realized that agility implementation is important for competitiveness as well as survival. Agility implementation n holds scares literature but it has been essential in the provision of theoretical overview of the existing agility dimensions that has further generated a conceptualization of the associated components. In addition there is the main empirical review for the attention of management of agility which gives an indication that agility implementation is essential to the business although effectiveness has not been achieved in its implementation.
The definition of agility is held in a mutual way by most authors and most research which implies that the definition has no contradiction as compared to its implementation (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016). Agility is described as the capability of an organization to perceive, sense, response and analyze the transformations that raises in the turbulent surrounding based on cost, quality, speed, responsiveness, participation, changes exploitation, learning as well as knowledge (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016). This therefore implies that an effective agility implementation must be portioned in three distinct phases which includes transformations, organization’s capabilities as well as the context of the organization.
Agility is a fresh paradigm for developing competitiveness which has been researched widely since its introduction in the 20th century. The theory in its distinct natures is currently recognized as the winning approach for development if not the general survival in particular surroundings of the business. Agility means that this is not the capability of responding to the unexpected changes but also the capability of acting proactively in the context of change. Change in regard to because is one aspect that remains constant at all times and should therefore be considered. The main aspects that have been identified to be the major shapers of the competitive future surrounding today and in the future is technology acceleration, information availability, international market, skills shifts, limitation of resources, competition, wages as well as developing consumers’ expectations and demands. The changes are mainly influenced by the changing structures of the market, consumer’s necessities, social and technological factors as well as competition. From the summary of different studies it is clear that the major influences of agility are the growing competition, consumers expectation enhancements, acceleration of innovation and technology, market globalization, cultural and social factors, variability of the market, information advancement human resource scarcity and modernity changes (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016).
According to Gong, & Janssen, (2012), agility is the ability of the business processes to respond to the unexpected market changes. He defined agility as the capability of administering and applying the acquired knowledge effectively in order to ensure that an organization gains the capability of thriving inconsistent transformations and unexpected business surrounding. Qiu, (2013) provides the expression that the agility theory is the procedure by which researchers and individuals in the business practice develops a definition. Agility, therefore, focuses on the threshold of being able to compete and operate within an energetic and consistently changing environment. The theory of agility is one of the numerous primary industry visions that have been established (Qiu, 2013).
Agility has auxiliary been defined by Gong, & Janssen, (2012), as the energetic, context particular, growth oriented and aggressive changes embracing. From this viewpoint, agility involves a continuous willingness to transform and therefore there is no adequate time when a corporation has achieved the purpose of agility time becomes inadequate. Based on the definition above agility in a specific context in those distinctions among the market limit the detailed rules are generalized in becoming agile. Agile corporations embraces transformations as they understand not only their present market, services and product lines, consumers, competencies but also comprehend the possibility for future markets and consumers and the requirements of changing to meet the presented opportunities (Qiu, 2013).
Based on Holmqvist, & Pessi, (2006), Agility is an effective competitive exploration which includes flexibility, speed, reactivity, innovation, profitability and quality via integration of configurable resources and suitable practices in a rich surrounding knowledge to give consumer-driven services and products in transforming market surrounding fast.
Agility Implementation Approaches and Models
Agile corporations have been advocated as the paradigm in the 21st-century organization and it is currently the winning approach in achieving business competitiveness in the transforming consumer necessities (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016). However the ability to build an agile organization and can develop the rapid anticipation based on technological development which is ongoing. In embracing agility organizations agility has to be adopted in the best way. The organization therefore is necessitated to understand that agility has been achieved, how agility can be evaluated and assessed, the degree to which the attributes of an organization are affected by agility, how agility can be developed if needs is achieved how agility can be achieved effectively. This helps in assisting business practitioners in achieving an organization that is agile and that holds various studies that are dedicated to implementing, determining, design and developing a corporation that is agile (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016).
Based on literature, agility aspects include consumer’s value delivering, changes readiness in regard to market and advancement and prosperity in market that is characterized by competitiveness. According to Holmqvist, & Pessi, (2006), The most essential aspect of business agility is consumer’s prosperity, information, firm’s cooperation with others as well as the capability of fitting to distinct uncertainties and changes. Based on several studies actual agility components in the manufacturing industry are strategic procedures identification, main competencies, numerous winners, information advancement as well as integration.
According to Mertins, Bénaben, Poler, & Bourrieres, (2014), agility application assists enterprises to respond to changes effectively. Agility is associated with four major dimensions which help in changes responsiveness. The first one involves consumers enrichment which entails a fast comprehension of unique necessities of every consumers and providing their demands. The second one involves cooperation general which entails partnerships and developing relationships in the quest for achieving competitiveness. The third agility dimension uses fresh structures of the organization in mastering the transformations and uncertainties via techniques like teams functions and engineering of the existing organizational process. The fourth dimension in particular entails the effect of individuals, technology, information as well as recognizing employees significant as an organization’s asset thus placing more developed emphasis on training, empowerment and education (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016).
Baskerville, (2005), opts to define agility as the managing and knowledge application capability in cooperation with proficiency of change. Via both management of knowledge and proficiency change there are several practices that are termed as immature. Rahman, & Sousa, (2014), Holds that information insufficiency in regard to agility implementation results into most business projects being unsuccessful. He states that an organization that is agile is that one that holds high proficient in regard to changes. This therefore means that the organization demonstrates competency at resulting in and dealing with transformations in distinct significant competitive business aspect. There are three major theories that are related to agility implementation which involves competency assessment, critical practices of a business and transformations proficiency (Salmela, Tapanainen, Baiyere, Hallanoro, & Galliers, 2015).
Due to the distinction of pressures and transformations that a business achieves, agility degree is always different. In the implementation of agility the degree of its need must be established first. This is then followed by an assessment of the existing agility and the difference is utilized in developing requirements in its implementation (Salmela, Tapanainen, Baiyere, Hallanoro, & Galliers, 2015). Agility needs determination assists in examining the abilities of the presented agility to the corporation. Distinct methodologies are utilized in implementing agility in a corporation this methods may entails an examination of the environment of a particular business, establishing the agility degree that is required, speculating on strategic approaches that are best suitable, establishing the corporations abilities in the context of unpredictable changes responsiveness and establishing the priorities and abilities of an organization in meeting the abilities necessitated by the corporation in changes responsiveness (Salmela, Tapanainen, Baiyere, Hallanoro, & Galliers, 2015).
Since agility is mainly based on a developed company’s abilities and structural knowledge the following steps must therefore be adopted in ensuring that agility is achieved. This step includes agility attributes, obstacles and metrics (Salmela, Tapanainen, Baiyere, Hallanoro, & Galliers, 2015). This criterion helps in ensuring that a business secures a competitive position in the market. The main aim of agility implementation is to achieve satisfaction through ensuring that the employees as well as the consumers are satisfied. The major influence of agility implementation is change. Despite the fact that change is not viewed as something new or something that is of great essence presently change is occurring at a very high speed than it did previously. Competition and business uncertainty have currently become the major causes of manufacturing industry issues and failure. The changes number and characteristic or the general specifications cannot be established easily since they are probably indefinite.
A successful agility implementation into any business must follow the following aspects. The first feature is that consumers necessities, competition strategy, technology, market, social factors are transforming the surrounding of business competition today. The following aspect is that agility in an organization attempts to enhance and satisfy consumers based on components like time, cost robustness and function. Agility abilities that are involved in the third aspect of a business involve quickness, flexibility, competency and responsiveness. In order for organizations to achieve agility they are therefore required to reinforce the enablers of agility like competence, technology, integration, quality, market, technology, education, team building uncertainties and changes (Salmela, Tapanainen, Baiyere, Hallanoro, & Galliers, 2015).
Critical Analysis of the State – Of – The – Art and Literature
Most manufacturing organization today have released that agility is important for competitiveness as well as for survival on the business market presently and also in the future (Sangari, Razmi, & Zolfaghari, 2015). As mentioned prior the available literature on agility provides theoretical overviews of the aspects as well as the agility related components. It is obvious that distinct agility facets have been continuously emphasized by different studies and this has thus resulted in the development of varied views which have been well reflected in literature. Despite the growing differences all the definitions of agility and the structure of implementation emphasize on flexibility and speed in responsiveness as the main attributes to effective agility implementation. Despite the fact that there has not been a common implementation strategy of agility and the associated definition that has been achieved the large parts in regard to the opinions that concerns agility implementation are mutual. Agility term is utilized in generating a research on the way that an organization can best handle energetic and unpredicted surrounding of the environment. An attribute that is equally significant in regard to agility is successful and quick response to uncertainty and transformations. A successful agility implementation is equal to proficiency change as well as management knowledge. In addition there is a huge number of publications that generates data in regard to agility implementation in regard to particular techniques, strategies as well as manufacturing practices. In addition implementation of agility had been associated with various approaches, manufacturing practices and techniques (Sangari, Razmi, & Zolfaghari, 2015). However few studies have focused on the state of art and agility implementation’s future.
Agile implementation presents challenges based on the reviewed literature. This is because currently the concepts of agility implementation have not been thoroughly conceptualized and defined (Taji, Siadat, & Hoveida, 2016). Although the major and most significant agility attributes have been established implementation of those attributes into the business structure tends to be very complex. In reference to literature the following components have been established to be the most significant in a successful implementation of agility. This includes people, organization, as well as technology. The above mentioned elements is a complex and multidimensional structure and therefore different related aspects and concepts in this projects literature can be analyzed in two different forms. First the literature can be categorized based on the adherence of the agility relevance to the primary attributes. In the above reviewed literature, huge agility diversity has been acknowledged. Therefore according to this category of review the following are the major agility implementation attributes which includes adaptability, flexibility, speed, responsiveness, low complexity, integration, competences mobilization, customized products, high quality as well as cultural transformation (Taji, Siadat, & Hoveida, 2016).
It is essential to note that from the mentioned attributes the main and the international agility characteristics that can reflect in most of the significant enterprise aspects include organization, workforce, and production (Tseng, & Lin, 2011). Flexibility is accounted as the capability to pursue distinct business tactics and strategies to quickly transformations from one approach to the next. The approaches should, therefore, be a different course in reasonable extent which endangers the main purpose and integrity of the organization. On the other hand, responsiveness refers to the capability to establish opportunities and changes in an effective way. The term cultural change is a definition of the supportive environment experimentation, innovation as well as learning and continuous environmental changes. The changes of culture area surrounding are where individuals of all the levels of an organization hold fearless and optimist attitudes towards uncertainty, changes, technology as well as ideas. For an organization to responding effectively, changes and opportunities have to be identified. The market and business surrounding have been evaluated in the quest to establish fresh technologies production methods, management as well as organization practices. Speed refers to the capability of completing necessities of all other agile agility in the shortest period. Learning ability can be determined by the underlying capability to respond to transformations effectively. The integration and reduced complexity dimensions which are defined as simple components of agility (Tseng, & Lin, 2011).
Agility classification concepts and features are grounded on their adherence to the structures of an enterprise. The international agility attributes can be identified as objectives for high-status management and are applicable to the general enterprise (Sangari, Razmi, & Zolfaghari, 2015). The implementation of agility in any business mainly depends on the particular goals of an enterprise. However, at the uppermost and international enterprise level can be identified through few domains should mainly focus for enterprises while attempting to achieve agility. These major domains are focused on achieving consumer’s satisfaction, learning, management of knowledge and cultural transformations development (Taji, Siadat, & Hoveida, 2016).
Agility Implementation
Cruz-Cunha, & Putnik, (2006) acknowledges that an effective agility implementation necessitates to the transformations and also in exploitation of those changes. A successful implementation of agility requires transformations in five distinct government areas regulations, enterprise cooperation, information technology and the flexibility of an organization. In order to implement agility level effectively driver’s identification should be based on the agility drivers. In order to determine the present agility level, corporation holds the abilities of responding to changes that happens in the competitive environment is asses and established the capabilities that the organization does not have. After the determining the agility degree that is held by an organization and the agility level that it requires, the strategic intent to be an agile it is important development and preparation strategy. Through determining the present and the desired agility level and strategic planning the providers may therefore assist the organization in enhancing the existing capabilities are particular and promoted. Agility implementation should follow the following steps which include agility influences, the capabilities of agility as well as the provider’s agility (Vlaanderen, van Stijn, Brinkkemper, & van de Weerd, 2012).
Capabilities refer to the continuous transformations, competencies, flexibility, integration and responsiveness. This should therefore be cost effectiveness with and application of the acquired knowledge (Wylie, Harvey, & Liddy, 2016). The main drivers of agility involve the demand derived from consumers, market transformations, enterprise networks the ability to deliver the expectations of consumers as well as the capability of overcoming the issues that are subjected to the social and financial environment. Agility structures refers to the skilled creativity, innovation, resource, cooperation, communication, consistent learning, leadership, rewards approaches, administration style, coordination, productivity, outsourcing independent development of decisions and authority delegation (Vlaanderen, van Stijn, Brinkkemper, & van de Weerd, 2012).
Presently many corporations are experiencing growing and continuous intense competition in the marketplace (Wylie, Harvey, & Liddy, 2016). This competition is mainly influenced by innovational technology, the transforming market surrounding and the transforming consumer’s demands and expectations. The critical scenario has resulted in major reconstructions of business-focused, strategic visions, contemporary models as well as conventional viability. In the increasing competitive market there is a necessity to build and develop organizational responsiveness and suppleness. In the previous decades most corporations adopted business procedure-engineering as well as quality management strategy in addition to other approaches that are aimed at generating improvement in the context of responses demands and challenges which have not turned to be success (Wylie, Harvey, & Liddy, 2016).
Findings
From the literature that is related to business management agility is a conceptual progress that is established by flexibility. Agility state of art development is fully dependent on responsiveness speed as well as quickness. This is mainly because speed is highly necessitated in responding to consumers demands and completing different operations. In short agility is the capability to sense inside and external high uncertain changes and respond quickly and effectively based on innovation (Pigosso, McAloone, & Rozenfeld, 2016).
Agility implementation should hold consumer satisfaction in mind as it helps in determining the effectiveness of the business in general. From the above discussion it is therefore clear that agility definition is not certain but it is mainly directed to achieving improvement and operational advantage in terms of consumer’s satisfaction. Agility evaluation is therefore important before conducting any implementation since it is meant to deal with the distinct changes that occur in the business surrounding (Qiu, 2013).
Agility implementation cannot be referred as just a general procedure as knowledge and skills are highly required. It is thus clear that the implementation of agility in any business requires resources, cost skills and expertise knowledge. This therefore proves to be change for most organizations in the business since most of the implementation are not successful. Future implementation of agility should therefore take consideration of cost efficiency, skills and developed knowledge (Qiu, 2013).
In the competitive business surrounding where globalization, innovational, technological, market emergence and economic factors are rapidly taking course the success of any organization regardless of its size is solemnly dependent on the ability to implement agility successfully. Strategic agility is described as the dynamic capability of revising the reinvent of an organization and its strategy as the surrounding of the business experiences different changes. According to the recent studies on agility implementation the dynamic capability in the business surrounding is the success factor as the environment is transforming very fast and it can thus be described as the capability of offering support and handling the sudden transformations so that the changing market opportunities can be capitalized. However the same phenomenon is described as the ability to give the actual services and products at the actual location and period for the accurate consumers. According to Dahlén, Urby, Fredriksson, Dabérius, Qaderi, Wilson, & Nilsson, (2016), strategic agility in general does not imply to the status of having an approach but it is a strategic thinking and precise vision emphasis rather than strategic planning. Agility is therefore the theory of approach development and implementation in the quest of achieving business development.
Agility implementation is the methodology where business operations are planned minimally and are conducted in reduced increments. Agility planning is short as it only requires the setting of goals and the strategies to achieve the developed goals. Agility ensures that the capability of an organization to adapt to project changes is made easier as it minimizes the involvement risks and requirements for changes adaptation (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016). From the analysis of literature, agility implementation was found to be the easiest and most beneficial as compared to the existing improvement strategies. The efforts required to translate the business to agile cannot be underrated either. Transforming an organization into agile manufacturing necessitates high commitment from the general organization. This is because anything less the commitment may result in compromising the decision making process. This can therefore result in limited agility benefits. Continuous development should be incorporated in the business. Since agility implementation has been applied in most organizations it is still in the evolution process as it is bound to change in the future. This indicated by the aspect that distinct business improvements are suited by different approaches.
An organization’s changes fitness is another agility implementation necessity. Since the business surrounding future and present times are characterized by uncertainties and changes the manufacturing sector is highly required to be fit. Therefore organizations are required to have clear and well-defined strategies and visions on how agility will best operate. This does not simply imply to the general ability to developing changes but the capability of responding and recovering quickly from the different changes that occurs (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016).
Agility conceptual model is comprised of divers, capabilities and the agility enablers. Based on this model a manufacturing enterprise experiences different transformations which influence the business to identify its abilities that can be acquired or enhanced in taking advantage of those changes. In turn the organization is focused to search for different ways of enhancing those capabilities (Romero, & Vernadat, 2016). Agility implementation is dependent on the criterion that follows. This includes government regulation, cooperation of business, information technology, reengineering, and flexibility. In short this means that in order for agility to be effective the formulated government laws that relate to business operation must be considered. In addition re-engineering of the business structure and strategy may assist in gathering more competitive advantage through the acquired information.
Discussion
It is very clear that the significance of agility in any business cannot be understated. Most organization is experiencing issues in the implementation of agility in gaining a competitive advantage as well as in produces and development of processes. Agility is mostly accepted as a fresh competitive theory in the sector of manufacturing in fulfilling the ranging demands from consumers. This is mainly influenced by the change of technology as well as innovation development which has resulted in demands and expectations shifts (Cruz-Cunha, & Putnik, 2006). Therefore agility implementation evaluation has turned to be aggregate necessity for the present and future development of agile manufacturing application. The general success of an organization relies on the general capability to manage results that are based on the essential factors of success and provide unique and content attention so that they may generate an increased performance. For the manufacturing sector this project proposes a set of efficiency factors for agility implementation analysis which are considered to be suitable in regard to the manufacturing industry.
Agility mainly depends on flexibility, innovation as well as good leadership. These aspects can thus be utilized in the implementation process of agility to ensure that efficiency is achieved maximum. In the context of agility success leadership, organizational flexibility and innovation are the major focuses of most organizations today (Dahlén, Urby, Fredriksson, Dabérius, Qaderi, Wilson, & Nilsson, 2016). This is mainly because suitable leaderships are capable of providing the business with solutions of overcoming complexities and future uncertainties. Flexibility on the other hand is the ability to handle changes in operations as well as raise of uncertainties. Agility gives the organization flexibility since the business is able to quickly adapt to different changes changing market situations as well as trends. An organization’s agility is the major function of the design of that organization.
Based on this project’s review’s fresh age enterprises are highly required to efficiently and effectively respond to the distinct changes and benefits that are provided by agility implementation. In order for the businesses to get used to agility the enterprises necessitates updating the existing processes of business while giving different agility implementation methodology. This can, therefore, be achieved through the utilization of service-oriented systems in ensuring that agility implementation is successful (Holmqvist, & Pessi, 2006).
Based on the literature review of this project it is thus clear that small enterprises are faced with greater challenges when implementing agility as compared to a large corporation. This is influenced by the fact that agility implementation requires more resources which most of the small firms lacks (Holmqvist, & Pessi, 2006). Additionally, the firms are faced with challenges because of expertise knowledge inadequacy and financial constraints. Agility implementation requires well-developed knowledge and skills in order to yield the expected benefits. The large firm’s agility implementation effectiveness is hindered by the lack of adequate information in regard to the strategy’s implementation. In order for agility to be effective in any enterprise, the businesses must have the capability of changing and adapting to different changes by making strategic decisions that are aimed at developing the business (Holmqvist, & Pessi, 2006).
The theory of strategic agility is different from the application of other strategies that are aimed at generating improvement to the business. Despite the fact that agility and strategic application are the major essential aspect of the business in the marketplace today strategic planning necessitates to be replaced by the strategic agility in order to generate more development (Dahlén, Urby, Fredriksson, Dabérius, Qaderi, Wilson, & Nilsson, 2016).For most enterprises, improving the agility capacity involves developing fundamental transformations to the mode in which the business is administered. The fundamental transformations can be less drastic or even more as this depends on the structure of the organization. Changes cannot be evicted as they are major sections of the businesses. Despite the possible positive effects change cannot be resisted both at an organizational and individual level. Changes are associated with different implications whose certainty cannot be verified and therefore a more strategic approach is required as it is a common singularity.
In this context change management is crucial for an organization to be efficient and competitive. Fresh thoughts and innovation should be incorporated for the future should be apparent as pressures. One of the most significant factors in the effective organizational change implementation is the managerial behavior change (Gong, & Janssen, 2012). There are several organizations that opts a leadership style that is dictatorial while most organizations opts for consultative and participative leadership. In the success of agility implementation people are the main success factor as they help in determining the best methodology to apply. Agility mastering state of art necessitates the focus of three major enablers that is grounded in the management practices series. The evaluation of literature illustrates that flexibility and agility content terms holds overlapping notions. Agility is the enterprise’s capability in responding to transformations quickly and efficiently. On the other hand flexibility is the capability of responding to transformations situations. Although the both definitions look similar agility emphasizes more on being speedy. Several scholars conclude that agility and flexibility in regard to the future of any business are similar terms (Gong, & Janssen, 2012).
The theory of agility was developed in 1991 when the industrial sector was able to view distinct business surrounding changes. These changes includes growing market competition, market fragmentation, consumer demands changes, reduced lead times, high quality products as well as services and customized goods (Rahman, & Sousa, 2014). Agile manufacturing is a manufacturing strategy that combines technology, innovation, persons and the organization in yielding developments. Agility helps in developing processes tools for organizations which helps in responding quickly to the market changes and the consumer demands and at the same time controlling quality and cost. The most crucial aspect of agility is cooperation, information, persons and consumer’s prosperity. This implies that the development of the different products must consider the expectations and needs of the consumers in order to increase the development procedure of different products. The products should additionally be cost effective and of developed quality to satisfy the consumers. Agility requires individual’s skills within the organization in ensuring that the development process is well guided. This involves the skills and knowledge that is necessary in recognizing the needs and expectations of the organizations operating market. Information providence to the employees and the consumers is additionally essential in agility implementation as it helps in ensuring that effective communication is achieved. Due to the rapid technological transformation and consumers demands changes cooperation amid firms is highly necessary. This is because a single company cannot be able to hold the necessary skills and knowledge which are required in meeting the requirements of consumers (Rahman, & Sousa, 2014).
This project further suggests that future research is conducted in investigating casual impact relationship amid implementation of agility, cost as well as time benefits in the state of the art and future state development (Rahman, & Sousa, 2014). Additionally, comparative studies can be performed to identify any distinction that may occur in agility implementation in both large and small firms. This will help to develop increased knowledge in regard to the challenges that are bound to be experienced in the implementation procedure. The engagement of SME’s in the implementation and adoption of agility should additionally be investigated and evaluated in regard to the present and future development (Rahman, & Sousa, 2014).
This project researched on the state of the art and the future of agility implementation in organizations based on the available and related literature. Agility implementation methodologies were thus established to be the major influences of competitive advantage success. However implementing agility is associated with different changes as it requires expertise as well as extended resources (Dahlén, Urby, Fredriksson, Dabérius, Qaderi, Wilson, & Nilsson, 2016). Technology, as well as innovation, is another challenge which hinders agility implementation success. Despite the fact that technology was established based on a literature review that pertains the matter of achieving improvement a practical applicability should be established.
Presently organization is highly required to operate in highly competitive and energetic surroundings matters to externally and internally induce the rising changes (Yauch, 2011). While most of the business transformations can be considered as consistent there are several changes are disruptive which holds high capability of affecting the operation of the business world. Based on the above literature review a practical method is thus proposed by this paper in the implementation of agility and its development in the future. As mentioned in this research all the businesses and especially the manufacturing ones are necessitated to take consideration on the inside and external surrounding of the business in recognizing the pressing changes. Organization’s managers are therefore required to develop and enhance abilities and capabilities of corporations in exploiting and responding to changes that may occur within the given environment (Gong, & Janssen, 2012). Following this, an analysis procedure gap can be developed in determining the present and suitable agility level state. Organizational responsiveness, programs, and corrective actions can be utilized in developing constraints which help in developing the enterprise's agility. This research suggests that the future researcher considers an examination of validity as well as agility implementation strategy
Conclusion
In summary, agility manufacturing is an issue that is gaining growing acceptance in the world today from the academic and practitioner field. Agility is directly connected to the direct benefits of the business because it helps in attaining capabilities that would not be achieved easily. However, agility implementation for future development requires the utilization of more resources as well as increased cost. This is because the future of agility is bound to be faced by uncertainty issues due to the changing economy, innovation as well as technology. The demands and expectations of the consumers will be altered in the process. Agility implementation must take into account process flexibility which is the general capability of the business to deal with the changes that can be foreseen and those that cannot. This should be accomplished by ensuring that the objectives of the business are not altered and they are achieved at a specified time period. Flexibility is described as a transformation that does not affect the general operations of the business at any cost.
References
Cruz-Cunha, M. M., & Putnik, G. (2006). Agile virtual enterprises: Implementation and management support. Norwood Mass: Books24x7.com.
Dahlén, O., Urby, F., B Fredriksson, S., Dabérius, K., Qaderi, I., Wilson, M., ... & Nilsson, G. (2016). Traveling Into the Future: The Development of a Currency Exchange Application.
Gong, Y., & Janssen, M. (2012). From policy implementation to business process management: Principles for creating flexibility and agility. Government Information Quarterly, 29, S61-S71.
Holmqvist, M., & Pessi, K. (2006). Agility through scenario development and continuous implementation: a global aftermarket logistics case. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(2), 146-158.
IFIP Working Conference on Business Agility and IT Diffusion, & Baskerville, R. (2005). Business agility and information technology diffusion: IFIP TC8 WG 8.6 international working conference, May 8-11, 2005, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. New York: Springer
Khalgui, M., & Hanisch, H.-M. (2011). Reconfigurable embedded control systems: Applications for flexibility and agility. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
Mertins, K., Bénaben, F., Poler, R., & Bourrieres, J.-P. (2014). Enterprise interoperability VI: Interoperability for agility, resilience and plasticity of collaborations.
Pigosso, D. C. A., McAloone, T. C., & Rozenfeld, H. (2016). Characterization of the state-of-the-art and identification of main trends for Ecodesign Tools and Methods: Classifying three decades of research and implementation. Journal of the Indian Institute of Science, 95(4), 405-428.
Qiu, R. G. (2013). Business-oriented enterprise integration for organizational agility.
Rahman, H., & Sousa, R. D. (2014). Information systems and technology for organizational agility, intelligence, and resilience.
Romero, D., & Vernadat, F. (2016). Enterprise information systems state of the art: Past, present and future trends. Computers in Industry, 79, 3-13.
Salmela, H., Tapanainen, T., Baiyere, A., Hallanoro, M., & Galliers, R. (2015). IS Agility Research: An Assessment and Future Directions. )^(Eds.):‘Book IS Agility Research: An Assessment and Future Directions’(2015, edn.).
Sangari, M. S., Razmi, J., & Zolfaghari, S. (2015). Developing a practical evaluation framework for identifying critical factors to achieve supply chain agility. Measurement, 62, 205-214.
Taji, M., Siadat, S. A., & Hoveida, R. (2016). Identification and Ranking of Key Factors Influencing Organizational Agility Implementation on Total Quality Management (TQM) in Universities (Case Study: Isfahan University of Medical Sciences). International Business Management, 10(15), 2814-2822.
Tseng, Y. H., & Lin, C. T. (2011). Enhancing enterprise agility by deploying agile drivers, capabilities and providers. Information Sciences, 181(17), 3693-3708.
Vlaanderen, K., van Stijn, P., Brinkkemper, S., & van de Weerd, I. (2012, June). Growing into agility: process implementation paths for scrum. In International Conference on Product Focused Software Process Improvement (pp. 116-130). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Wylie, M., Harvey, D., & Liddy, T. (2016). Model-based conceptual design through to system implementation-lessons from a structured yet agile approach. In 2016 Systems engineering test and evaluation conference: SETE 2016 (p. 87). Engineers Australia.
Yauch, C. A. (2011). Measuring agility as a performance outcome. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 22(3), 384-404.
