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The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relationships among the flexibility enablers and to prepare a hierarchy of these enablers to know their influences over each other in global supply chain. The framework suggests that the priority of enablers in supply chain should be determined on the basis of their driving power and dependency.

Various enablers used by researchers and practitioners for flexibility management of global supply chain have been identified. These enablers have been classified as strategic, operational and performance‐based enablers. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to establish mutual relationships among the flexibility enablers and to prepare a hierarchy‐based model.

It has been observed that some enablers having high‐driving power and low dependency are of strategic importance. These enablers require more attention while other enablers based on operations and performances are dependents of strategic enablers.

The index of enablers based on driving power and dependency provides an insight to supply chain managers to make the entire supply chain highly flexible and help them to respond to global uncertainties.

Presentation of enablers in the form of hierarchy using ISM and ranking them into various driving power and dependent categories is a good effort to make flexible global supply chain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Most of previous research on manufacturing flexibility has been conceptual by nature and finalized to build analytical models and only a small percentage of the studies have focused on empirical observations of actual industrial practice. In this study, we applied a DEA‐based methodology to identify small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) that operate on the frontier of manufacturing flexibility practice. Data were obtained via a questionnaire survey that considered seven basic dimensions of manufacturing flexibility. Subsequently, discriminant analysis was carried out to delineate which contextual factors and managerial aspects characterize the firms that have reached the “best practice” status. Finally, on‐site investigation was carried out with the “excellent” firms to better delineate their organizational and strategic profile.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether the influence of manufacturing flexibility on firms’ exploration/exploitation differs between firms that possess Certified Quality Management Systems (CQMS) and firms that do not.

The authors analyze a sample of 231 Spanish manufacturing firms, 131 of which had received some form of Quality Certification. The data were collected through a structured telephone questionnaire addressed to company CEOs. The relationships are modelled using regression equations, including interaction terms, in order to test for the existence of a moderating effect.

The results show that certified companies exploit their own abilities, whereas uncertified firms tend to explore new knowledge. The authors also justify the importance of manufacturing flexibility for both options, exploration and exploitation.

The limitations of this research include the fact that the authors study a variety of forms of certification, not only ISO, and the fact that all companies belong to the same country.

This study contributes to developing empirical knowledge of the benefits of CQMS in the firm.

The paper develops a new model to improve manufacturing flexibility and Quality Management.

Flexibility in manufacturing has aroused considerable interest among researchers and professionals. However, the vast body of literature on flexibility does not adequately address the kind of flexibility a company needs to meet its strategic objectives, nor how this flexibility can be achieved. An overview is provided of different types of flexibility, a classification scheme based on the strategic positioning and goals of the firm is provided, and suggestions are made on how these goals may be achieved. The importance of such a classification in the design and investment justification of flexible manufacturing is also discussed.

In the complex environment of manufacturing system, it is proper to design a production system which meets the market requirements in the most economical and competitive manner. Flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is one of the options to meet the uncertainty in demand and high variety of products. This paper aims to review the definition, classification, and measurement of manufacturing flexibility concerned with manufacturing flexibility management.

The selection process consists of the synthesis and critical evaluation of the concepts put forward in the extant literature. As a consequence of this process, three primary flexibility dimensions are identified: volume, variety and machine. Simulation approach is used to study the behavior of FMS under different demand scenarios and levels of flexibility.

Four hypotheses are tested in five different flexibility levels. The following conclusions are obtained from the study. For any flexibility level, as the traffic density (TD) increases, the system utilization increases; as the TD increases, the throughput time increases; and as the number of part type increase, the system utilization decreases. A comparison between five flexibility levels showed that flexibility level 4 is best in terms of system utilization and throughput time. Flexibility level 2 perform second best, better than flexibility level 3 and flexibility level 5 which is not in line with initial assumption. Lastly, from the above results it is concluded that partial flexibility is better as compare to no flexibility and total flexibility.

It is felt that the contribution of the paper lies in demonstrating the usefulness of simulation technique in quantifying the aspects related to FMS. The effect that a specific design variable has on a specific system level flexibility type can change with the level of part processing flexibility present and flexibility trade‐off in manufacturing systems is not inevitable. This would help the planners of FMS to think and design FMS in a holistic manner.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of strategic sourcing and determines its relationship with organisational supply chain agility and performance. It classifies manufacturing firms based on their level of supply chain agility and test the diffrences in firms' performnace across the clusters so obtained.

This research employes survey method and data is collected from 128 manufacturing companies in India. Valid and reliable measures of strategic sourcing, supply chain agility and organizational performance are developed. Factor structure and initial validity is determined and K‐Means cluster analysis is applied for clustering firms based on their level of supply agility. Multiple regression and ANOVA is used for hypotheses testing.

Strategic suplier partnership, sourcing flexibility, supplier evaluation and trust in supply chain members are the key dimensions of strategic sourcing. Result shows the significant effect of strategic sourcing and its diemnsions on supply chain agility and firms' performance.

Data is collected from single node/respondent of supply chain and further research can be carried out by using mutiple node data of each supply chain to make the research more meaningful and generalisable.

Findings are useful to develop and measure the competitive capabilities of strategic sourcing and guide the organisations to enhance supply chain responsiveness and organisational performance.

The paper provides strategic diemnsions of sourcing and their measurement scales. Provide evidence regarding the impact of strategic sourcing on agility of supply chains and performnace.

We use the methodology from quality function deployment (QFD) for linking manufacturing flexibility to market requirements. This approach creates a framework for modelling the deployment of the need for flexibility from the customers’ viewpoints into manufacturing flexibility at various hierarchical levels. We present an application of the methodology in a real case study at a firm where a manufacturing system was being redesigned for the manufacture of a new and wider range of products than previously, based on a new product platform. Based on the case study we discuss the benefits and limitations of using the QFD approach to deploy manufacturing flexibility. The paper also presents a literature review of the manufacturing flexibility framework arena.