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During design of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, manufacturing companies need to select and implement the right enablers of reconfigurability in accordance with the specific requirements being present in the manufacturing setting. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate enablers of reconfigurability in terms of their importance in industry, current level of implementation in industry, and significant differences in their implementation and criticality across different manufacturing settings.

A questionnaire survey is conducted, in order to provide generalizable empirical evidence across various industries and manufacturing types.

The findings indicate that the level of implementation of the reconfigurability enablers is rudimentary, while their criticality is perceived higher than the current level of implementation. Moreover, significant differences regarding implementation and criticality of mobility, scalability, and convertibility were found for companies with varying degrees of manual work, make-to-stock production, and varying production volume, industry type and organization size.

Main limitations of the research cover the relatively small sample size and non-random sampling method applied, primarily limited to one country, which could be increased to further extent the findings reported in this paper.

The findings indicate that the importance and implementation of reconfigurability enablers is contingent on the manufacturing setting. Thus, the research presented in this paper provides valuable knowledge in regard to aiding a paradigm shift in industry and help companies design manufacturing systems with the right reconfigurability enablers.

This paper expands research on manufacturing system design for changeability and reconfigurability, by explicitly considering these as capabilities that can be enabled in various ways for various purposes in different manufacturing contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to present a decisions support tool that can be applied in initial stages of design, for evaluating the investment feasibility of changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing design concepts, based on future demand predictions and their uncertainties. A quantitative model is proposed, which evaluates the discounted value of capital and operating costs of changeable manufacturing design concepts, based on essential characteristics regarding their type and extent of changeability.

Quantitative empirical modeling is applied, where model conceptualization, validation, and implementation are central elements, using two Danish manufacturing companies as cases.

The applicability of the model is demonstrated in the two case companies, highlighting differences in type, extent, and level of feasible changeability, as a result of differences in product and production characteristics.

Further studies of changeability implementation should be conducted across industrial fields in order to generalize findings.

There is currently limited support for the conceptual design phase of changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing, where critical decisions regarding type, extent, and level of changeability must be made, regardless of high degrees of uncertainty about future demand scenarios.

This paper expands previous research on design for changeability and reconfigurability, by explicitly considering changeability as a capability that can be enabled in various ways for various purposes in different industrial contexts. The proposed model and the case implementations provide important knowledge on the transition toward changeability in industry.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of change leadership (informing, communicating, involving and supporting) and change management (reasons and competencies for change) for organisational change processes and their outcomes across public and private organisations. The study includes three specific change situations: first, layoffs; second, mergers; and third, closures, relocations and outsourcing, focusing on how change leadership and change management relate to employees’ experience of the change processes and their outcomes across these change situations.

The study is based on panel data forming a representative sample of the Danish working population. A total of 2,120 responses were collected, 1,000 from public organisations and 1,120 from private organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

The study findings show that both change leadership and change management predict positive change experiences and change consequences – and that they do so similarly across public and private sectors. Despite this similarity, the study reveals important sectorial differences, with public sector employees reporting less positive change experiences and consequences.

The paper provides valuable knowledge for researchers and public and private leaders interested in the impact of change leadership and change management on change outcomes.