The UK manufacturing industry is facing major challenges, including the needs to reduce response time, to be flexible in production and to keep the cost down. In order to meet ever-changing demands and stiff competition from abroad, manufacturing organisations need to respond to these challenges. Agile manufacturing is a step forward in the generation of new means for better performance and success of business, and in practice is a strategic approach to manufacturing by considering the new conditions of the business environment. This paper discusses current progress on the development of a methodology for industry to implement agility and proposes a framework to facilitate business strategy formulation in manufacturing organisations. Following an introduction of agile manufacturing, a discussion of the methodology and associated tools, including metrics for the assessment of agility drivers, capability and performance, are provided.
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