Investigations on implementing leagile paradigm and an exploration on the adoption of industry 4 0 to achieve leagility in pump manufacturing industry

Abstract

During the past three decades manufacturing companies have been striving to implement lean and agile manufacturing paradigms for carrying out world class manufacturing journey at a faster pace Lean manufacturing refers to the production of conventional products through the elimination of wastes for achieving customer satisfaction Agile manufacturing refers to the production of innovative products quickly so that the customers are delighted Over the past two decades many researches have been reported in literature arena under the domains of lean and agile manufacturing paradigms It is apt to implement lean manufacturing paradigm in companies in which conventional products are manufactured On the other hand it is prudent to implement agile manufacturing paradigm in companies in which innovative products are produced Meanwhile it was observed that it had been a difficult experience to implement both these paradigms simultaneously in companies in which both conventional and innovative products are manufactured In order to overcome this difficulty a few researchers brought out the leagile manufacturing paradigm As its title implies the leagile manufacturing paradigm is encapsulated with lean and agile manufacturing principles Leagile manufacturing paradigm appeared in the scientific world in the year 1999 Although a section of researchers have been further working on leagile manufacturing paradigm the implementation of the same is yet to occur in many industries Pump industry is one such industry in which such implementation is yet to occur This situation indicates the necessity to examine the need for investigating the practicality of applying leagile manufacturing paradigm in the production of pumps In order to meet this necessity the doctoral work reported in this thesis was carried out This research was carried out in five phases During the first phase a field study was conducted in a pump manufacturing company The results of conducting this field study revealed the newline newline newline newline