Optimization Approaches to Assess Manufacturing Agility

The results obtained with the help of AHP and OARM based studies, reported in the previous chapter provided logical bases for comparing the 26 organizations under consideration in the view point of what can be related to agility. These two analyses were primarily in the category of empirical studies. As the outcome of these studies are largely dependent upon the input given by the personnel from the organizations. It was realized that there was scope for application of further analysis which may have its relevance to optimization. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Goal Programming (GP), Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM)....were identified suitable, and applied for further analyses. The results obtained using DEA (Charnes et al., 1978) clearly indicate where significant attention should be paid to realize the desired agility. Goal programming (Ignizio, 1976) method has been identified suitable to for optimization. We have also extended our studies to assess the agility of manufacturing supply chain (Second phase), the details of which is presented in the following sections.