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The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to incorporating mobility into continuous manufacturing following the advent of Industry 4.0 (I4.0).

The investigation is based on a year-long canonical action research into a paper-manufacturing company implementing core I4.0 technologies.

The findings show how to: classify manufacturing mobility strategy based on the dimensions of team, task and control; design business processes enabled by mobile cyber–physical resources; involve different stakeholders in modeling mobility; and create a comprehensive guide to assist in implementing the mobile digitalization required by I4.0.

Despite the complexity, richness and depth of the insights obtained in this research for mobility management in process industries, this inquiry was conducted in a single organization.

As the fourth industrial revolution encourages decentralization and increased interaction between humans and machines, this paper presents a model to capture the mobility potential in manufacturing. The tools proposed in this research can be used to steer investments in industry transformations that fuse the physical and digital worlds, overcoming mobility constraints.

Theoretically, this paper expands the concept of manufacturing mobility in I4.0. In practice, it proposes a participative roadmap to assist technology management in increasingly decentralized environments, identifying the intertwined network of cyber–physical actors, processes and services.

The recent shift towards accommodating flexibility in manufacturing companies and the complexity resulting from product variety highlight the significance of flexible assembly systems and designing products for them. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the requirements of a flexible assembly system for product design from the assembly system’s standpoint.

To fulfil the purpose of the paper, a literature review and a case study were performed. The case study was conducted with an interactive research approach in a global market leader company within the heavy vehicle manufacturing industry.

The findings indicate that common assembly sequence, similar assembly interfaces, and common parts are the main requirements of a flexible assembly system for product design which reduce complexity and facilitate various flexibility dimensions. Accordingly, a model is proposed to broaden the understanding of these requirements from the assembly system’s standpoint.

This study contributes to the overlapping research area of flexible assembly systems and product design.

The proposed model is largely based on practical data and clarifies the role of product design in facilitating flexibility in an assembly system. It can be used by assembly managers, assembly engineers, and product designers.

The key originality of this paper compared to the previous studies lies in presenting a novel assembly-oriented design model. The model enhances understanding of a flexible assembly system’s requirements for product design with regard to reducing complexity and managing variation in a flexible assembly system. These requirements can be applied to product design across various product families within a company’s product portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to explore different drivers and volume flexibility strategies employed in manufacturing firms. It also examines contingent factors, which determine volume flexibility requirement in manufacturing firms.

Using a multi-case study approach, the study examines and analyses drivers, strategies and contingent factors that affect volume flexibility in four Indian manufacturing plants belonging to automobiles, auto ancillary, fashion apparel and electrical industry.

The empirical analysis suggests various drivers of volume flexibility and different strategies employed by firms to enhance flexibility. The study also illustrates various contingent factors that determine the need of volume flexibility in firms.

The sample of the study is majorly confined to the northern region of India. Methodologically, the analysis is solely based on the qualitative data.

The study suggests practitioners to consider a range of contingent factors, while evaluating the need of volume flexibility in manufacturing plants. Rather than relying on a single strategy, a mix of strategies should be used to develop volume flexibility in firms.

The identification of a range of strategies employed by volume flexible firms as well as contingent factors that need to be evaluated before employing volume flexibility are the major contributions of this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology can help in the decision-making process of choosing action plans linked to manufacturing strategy. The research also analyses the path which some managers followed for defining and selecting the action plans as well as the organisational obstacles and pitfalls the managers encountered.

The authors conducted an exploratory case study in a medium-sized Italian manufacturing company. The authors collected, coded and discussed data from the AHP implementation. Furthermore, during the observation of how the managers dealt with the decision-making path, the authors collected, coded and discussed the qualitative data.

Results showed that AHP made the decision-making process of choosing between alternative plans more objective. However, the authors observed obstacles and pitfalls mainly linked to organisational aspects such as creating team and staff’s awareness, involvement and commitment as well as staff’s skills. Other interesting findings are linked to the creation of managers’ consensus and the top manager’s managerial style and how the latter could affect the AHP consistency ratio.

This research is based on a case study. The findings need to be tested by other scholars and practitioners in different organisations. Moreover, issues such as management consensus and negotiation in manufacturing organisations and managerial style need further research.

AHP methodology can help practitioners who are dealing with the deployment of strategic manufacturing objectives and who are trying to employ methods for choosing the right action plan. Besides, practitioners are aware of specific organisational obstacles and pitfalls encountered on the strategic deployment path.

This paper proposes for the first time the use of the AHP methodology for choosing between action plans derived from strategic manufacturing objectives.

The purpose of this research is to propose a new model for the integration of concurrent function deployment (CFD) and parameter (P) diagram in order to prioritize innovation factors.

Each of the approaches of CFD and P diagram and their features has been demonstrated and according to their common features, an integrated model has been designed in two phases. It has been examined in Sepahan Industrial Group, of which the major product is API gas pipeline network demanded by Isfahan Province Gas Organization. A questionnaire has been designed and delivered to four major units of Isfahan Province Gas Organization.

“Hydrostatic test” and “number of close end branch pipes” with the average values of 4.78 and 3.31 have been found as the first and last priorities of importance to customers, respectively. The output of the first phase includes “equipments” as the first priority of control factors, and “changing market or customers wants” as the first priority of noise factors. The results of the second phase show that “fault‐free product” and “successful innovation outcomes” are, respectively, recognized as first priorities of response factors. Finally, “successful innovation outcomes” has been determined as the first priority of response factors.

The matrixes of the two phases could become larger if the number of factors in the P diagram increases, and therefore, filling and analyzing the matrixes might become time consuming and difficult.

The proposed integrated model can be effective for almost all organizations that aim to meet the dynamic needs of markets and customers and intend to incorporate innovation in their products and services. By the new approach, determination and prioritization of innovation factors can be done based on customers' viewpoint, while in the traditional approaches this was done only from the viewpoint of engineers and designers.

This paper aims to empirically investigate the triadic relationship between internal integration, internal flexibility and external flexibility.

This research hypothesized the mediation effect of internal flexibility on the relationship between internal integration and external flexibility. Survey data were collected and analyzed using simple and mediation regression analysis to test the study hypotheses.

The research finding reveals that machine, labor and material handling flexibilities; being as internal flexibility dimensions mediate the relationship between internal integration and volume and mix flexibilities; being as external flexibility dimensions. The results provided insufficient evidence on the mediating effect of routing flexibility on the relationship between internal integration and both volume and mix flexibilities.

This research presents a new perspective for research studies to understand the factors that affect manufacturing flexibility. However, the nature of the surveyed sample and using of a single informant might limit the generalizability of the research findings.

This study provides useful insights for firms wishing to enhance their competitiveness through improving their flexibility. The companies should be aware of the importance of developing a suitable platform for coordinating inter-departmental activities to enhance its internal competencies, which, in turn, improve its customer-facing capabilities and boosts its competitiveness.

This paper contributes to knowledge by proposing and empirically testing the mediating effect of internal flexibility on the relationship between internal integration and external flexibility.

This research aims to investigate how manufacturing flexibility can address the challenges of an ever-changing and unpredictable business environment in Bangladesh’s labor-intensive ready-made garment (RMG) industry, which is underserved and situated in a developing country.

Using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling, this study empirically evaluated the relationships between manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty and firm performance. The analysis utilized 320 survey responses from potential RMG experts, representing 95 organizations.

The study achieved a decision-making model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in the RMG industry of Bangladesh with acceptable model fit criterion. The research pinpointed that workforce flexibility plays the maximum mediating among different types of manufacturing in coping with demand and supply uncertainty in the RMG sector.

The study made valuable contributions to theoretical and practical knowledge in the context of manufacturing flexibility in Bangladesh’s RMG and other underserved labor-intensive sectors in developing economies. It suggests that managers should shift from defensive and risky business strategies to more aggressive and proactive approaches by utilizing workforce flexibility resources adaptively to enhance manufacturing capabilities and align with dynamic market demand. Additionally, the study offers recommendations for future research to build upon its findings.

This study is unique in its approach because it presents a decision model for implementing manufacturing flexibility in a labor-intensive industry in a developing economy, specifically the RMG industry in Bangladesh, whereas previous research has primarily focused on high-tech industries in developed economies.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a method to help companies identify the resources needed to provide manufacturing flexibility and meet the demands of their potential consumers while complying with company strategy.

The literature related to flexibility is reviewed and a classification based on the following four levels is proposed: abilities, dimensions, elements and resources that provide flexibility. Based on this taxonomy and using the principles of quality function deployment, a method is proposed that shows the correlation between these four levels, starting with customer demand and company strategy. To show its applicability, the method was used in a manufacturing process in an automobile manufacturing company that produces nine models of vehicles.

The findings of the study include a taxonomy geared towards manufacturing flexibility and a method that enables the resources that provide flexibility in an industrial production line to be identified in order of importance. After being tested in an automobile manufacturing company, the method was found to be an effective aid to the deployment of flexibility and to help highlight the main resources that needed to be introduced in the manufacturing process in order to ensure the flexibility required by the market in keeping with the company brand.

The proposed method is based on the structure described by Olhagen and West. However, a taxonomy involving the deployment of other levels of flexibility identified by Kara and Kayis is added, making the method more complete as well as ensuring that it addresses strategic company issues.