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JMTM 16,6

576
Received August 2003 Revised January 2004 Accepted March 2004

Design for quality in agile manufacturing environment through modied orthogonal array-based experimentation
S.R. Devadasan
Department of Production Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India

S. Goshteeswaran
Department of Production Engineering, Amrita Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India, and

J. Gokulachandran
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India
Abstract
Purpose To provide a modied orthogonal array-based model for enabling the researchers and practitioners to exploit the technique, design of experiments in an agile manufacturing environment. Design/methodology/approach The characteristics of Taguchis off-line models and agile manufacturing were studied. A theoretical model of modied orthogonal array-based experimentation was designed. This model was subjected to implementation study in an Indian pump-manufacturing company. Findings The model contributed in this paper has shown its feasibility in achieving quality in agile manufacturing environment. Research limitations/implications The authors are residing in an Indian city where the majority of the companies have not adopted agile manufacturing criteria. Hence, it was not possible to carry out implementation study in an agile manufacturing company. Future researchers should examine the practical validity of the proposed model in agile manufacturing companies. Practical implications Since the manufacturing organizations are fast becoming agile, due to the customers dynamic demands coupled with competition, the traditional quality improvement techniques are becoming obsolete. The model contributed in this paper is found to be useful in achieving continuous quality improvement in AM environment. Hence the model would be a useful technique for todays practitioners whose activities are increasingly focused towards achieving agility in manufacturing. Originality/value The literature survey covering articles on agile manufacturing indicates that no researcher or practitioner has contributed a model that would exploit the technique, design of experiments in an agile manufacturing environment. Hence the proposed model is expected to be of high value for researchers and practitioners to explore the way of achieving continuous quality improvement in agile manufacturing environment. Keywords Agile production, Experimentation, Quality improvement, Delphi method, Taguchi methods Paper type Research paper

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management Vol. 16 No. 6, 2005 pp. 576-597 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-038X DOI 10.1108/17410380510609456

Introduction During the 1970s and 1980s, manufacturing organizations were compelled to focus on enhancing productivity and quality due to the emanation of competitive business situation. Of late, it has become so erce that manufacturing organizations are looking for a strategy to tame the situation (Rooks, 2000). It has been widely acknowledged that this predicament is due to customers requirements, which change very often. Recognizing and imparting them in practice are very much vital for survival of any organization. Hence, the manufacturing community has been forced to respond in such a manner that their production should be low in volumes and high in varieties (Maskell, 2001). Awareness of this state of affairs made some researchers to contribute their might in this regard and they brought out the paradigm called agile manufacturing (AM) (Hooper et al., 2001). In a nutshell AM is a combination of exible manufacturing system concepts and lean manufacturing principles (Sarkis, 2001) and calls for quick response to the customers demands (Parkinson, 1999). On realizing its importance in attaining competence in modern scenario, various forums have been started exclusively for promoting AM principles (Struebing, 1995). As AM paradigm is still at its nascent stage, signicant works are being carried out to make it operational in todays organizations (Shari and Zhang, 2001). Particularly, the task of researchers is focused towards modifying the existing manufacturing strategies so as to make them compatible in an AM environment (van Assen et al., 2000, Meredith and Francis, 2000). Among all manufacturing strategies, continuous quality improvement comes to the forefront. At this juncture, the contribution of Taguchi methods towards achieving continuous quality improvement is noted with interest. The large volume of applications of Taguchi methods reported in literature (Bendell, 1988; Antony and Antony, 2001) signies their power. Hence it was thought that the exploitation of Taguchi methods in AM environment would contribute considerably towards the integration of quality improvement approaches in an AM environment. Taguchi, a Japanese born quality guru, has contributed a number of models, which he has classied into off-line and on-line models (Aravindan et al., 1995). As the name implies, off-line models are applied before the actual production starts, whereas on-line models are applied during production. This paper reports the research work in which Taguchis off-line model was considered and its role in bringing out agility in manufacturing companies was examined through subjective and non-subjective experimentation. Distinguishing features of agile manufacturing A literature overview indicates that the term AM was coined in the early 1990s (Ramasesh et al., 2001). According to one denition:
AM is the science of a business system that integrates management, technology and workforce making the system exible enough for a manufacturer to switch over from one component that is being produced to another component that is desired to be produced in a cost-effective manner, in a short time within the framework of the system (Chowdiah, 1996).

Agile manufacturing environment 577

Fundamentally AM emphasizes upon the design and development of manufacturing systems which would enable the enterprises to quickly respond to the dynamic demands of the customers (Hormozi, 2001) without sacricing the prot margin (Power et al., 2001). Although various denitions and interpretations of AM are present in

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literature, it is very rare to nd research papers reporting the distinguishing characteristics of AM. One of the present research requirements is the identication of distinguishing features of AM from that of traditional manufacturing principles. A literature overview combined with appropriate interpretations enabled us to identify 20 distinguished features (van Assen et al., 2000; Bajgoric, 2001; Crocitto and Youssef, 2003; Goldman et al., 1995; Montgomery and Levine, 1996; Narain et al., 2000; Onuh and Hon, 2001; Pawar and Shaif, 2002; Power et al., 2001; Spring and Dalrymple, 2000). The details are presented in Table I. As shown, rst, AM calls for organizational restructuring by incorporating team-based architectures (Ebrahimpur and Jacob, 2001). Some organizations have already started progressing in this direction. For example, most of the software developing companies adopt team management principles to work with the focused approach for attaining goals specied to teams. This process is facilitated by instituting closely packed human and information networks, which signicantly improve both quality and the productivity. Another important criterion is the aspect of converting static organization into learning organizations. In traditional organizations, employees after getting initial training become specialists in their area of work. In an AM environment, as processes and products are required to be frequently varied, employees are required to learn new knowledge and skills continuously. For this purpose the manufacturer should be willing to promote and invest on relevant activities that would facilitate experimentation and innovations (Lee et al., 2000). Appropriate measures should be taken to tune the employees to become learners rather than mere job executors. Another salient point insisted is about the supply chain management (SCM) (Power et al., 2001). Traditional organizations adopt only subcontracting procedure whereas in an AM environment, depending upon the customers dynamic demands, new technologies and methods would have to be incorporated as developing the same within the organization would be quite uneconomical. Hence, the need arises for employing suppliers as partners. As suitable suppliers are to be selected amongst many and they have to be managed, SCM assumes special signicance in an AM environment. An important point of concern is about the time required for an organization to attain agility (van Assen, 2000). This will vary depending upon various factors. If both management and employees are enthusiastic, the transformation time needed will be very less. Likewise if the management has already adopted team management structure, the time required will be very much less. Another aspect that concerns the manufacturing community more is the strategies to be adopted in an AM environment. The major manufacturing strategies are quality improvement, productivity enhancement, time management and cost reduction (Murugesh et al., 1997). Of all, quality assumes special importance, as quality has been a major factor in attaining competence and sustenance in global market. Meanwhile there is a fear among manufacturing community about the increased investment and changing approaches being called for in attaining higher level of quality in the emerging AM paradigm. In order to overcome this state of affair, it is suggested that the existing quality strategies may be adopted in an AM environment and the techniques and tools for attaining them may be suitably rened (Crocitto and Youssef, 2003). The contribution in this direction, by either theorists or practitioners, most preferably by both will allay the fear of manufacturers over the implementation of quality strategies in an AM environment.

S no. Criteria Vertical, traditional and line Scattered and non-integrated Rigid, long-lasting and intolerable to changes

Traditional manufacturing company

Agile manufacturing company

1 2 3

Organizational structure Devolution of authority Manufacturing set-ups

4 5

Status of quality Status of productivity

Employees status

Flattened and team-managed Self-autonomous and integrated Flexible, easily collapsible, and quick response to changes Customers delight Rapid increase with practically feasible evaluation and integration with quality Learning employees. Multi-skilled, multi-functional and self-committed employees

Employee involvement

8 9 10 11 12 Dominated by internal manufacturing Long and cost-ineffectiveness Traditional type

Nature of management Customer response adoption Product life cycle Product service life Design improvement

Customers satisfaction Uniform with no reasonable evaluation and improvement Existence of specialists. No exposure to other functions and skills. Inexible and ignorant to changes Very feeble, ideas and knowledge are seldom shared or utilized Autocratic and stagnant Very slowly, takes place due to bureaucracy Long and ineffective Long and inexible Very rare, generally only modications are done

13

Production methodology

14

Manufacturing planning

15

Cost management

16 17

Automation type Direct and rigid automation Information technology (IT) integration Integration of existing long procedures with information technology (IT) (this is referred to as direct integration) Very difcult to incorporate, almost impossible Very inefcient Subcontracting type

18

19 20

Change in business and technical process Time management Supply chain management

Full empowerment, ideas and knowledge are fully utilized Learning organization and management Very fast and 100 percent response envisaged Short and effective Short and exible Very frequently and systematically exercised by conducting experiments Dominated by main assembly and external manufacturing and procurement Short, just-in-time purchase and least idle investment Activity-, strategy-, quality- and productivity-based costing systems Flexible and adaptable to automation Procedures are shortened and simplied before integrating with IT; maximum utilities of IT devices are incorporated (this is referred to as simplied IT integration) Economical. Previous set-up enables economical change in set-up Efcient Partnership with suppliers

Agile manufacturing environment 579

Table I. Distinguishing features of traditional and agile manufacturing environments

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Hence, a small piece of research work was carried out for investigating the suitability of applying Taguchis off-line model in an AM environment. Before discussing the details of this work, the salient features of Taguchis off-line model are presented in the next section. Taguchis off-line model In recent years, signicant efforts are being made in manufacturing arena to reduce the lead-time of design and production (Ebrahimpur and Jacob, 2001). For example, currently it takes more than a year to oat an automobile vehicle into market even after the successful completion of its design. The main reason attributed to this situation is that, production cannot be started before the design is subjected to exhaustive testing. In order to test the validity of design, prototype models are constructed and a large number of experiments are required to be conducted. This process consumes signicant amount of time and money and requires patience. Taguchi has offered solution to overcome this situation (Taguchi, 1989; Ross, 1996). The entire procedure involved in conducting experiments (Antony and Antony, 2001) using Taguchis off-line model is depicted in Figure 1. As shown, the process starts with the precise denition of the problem. Based on the problem denition, the factors that are responsible for the existence of the problem are identied. Against each factor, the levels at which they act are to be identied. For a single problem, a number of factors with at least two levels can be identied. A large number of experiments are required to be conducted to identify the best combination of factors and their corresponding levels. However, it is not viable to conduct all those experiments. In order to reduce the number of experiments without losing the chance of identifying the optimal combination of factors and their corresponding levels, Taguchi has advocated the exploitation of Latin square along with a graphical tool named as linear graph. The Latin square with its corresponding linear graph is called as orthogonal array (OA). The elements of OAs were developed based on equally likely probability of occurring the sample of events from a lot. OAs are denoted by Taguchi as L4, L8, L16 etc. Presumably L refers to Latin square. The sufxes indicate the number of rows of the corresponding OA. The number of rows indicates the number of experiments to be conducted. Figure 2 shows L4 orthogonal array. The factors are assigned to the columns according to the specication of linear graph. Columns 1 and 2 can exist separately and the column 3 would contain the elements, which would reect the combination of the elements of columns 1 and 2. The numbers in the matrix indicate the levels of the corresponding factors. The design of experiments using OAs is illustrated by considering the L4 OA shown in Figure 2. Experiment 1 is designed by considering level 1 of factor I, level 1 of factor II and level 1 of combination of factors I and II. In cases, where the combination effect of factors I and II is not signicant, column 3 is ignored. After obtaining the approval from the management, the experiments are conducted and the results are recorded. Followed by this, the results are plotted on a graph for initial interpretation and further analysis is made possible by statistical tool namely ANOVA by which signicance of factors are ascertained. Further, calculation of percentage contribution is used to verify whether any signicant factors are left out. If so, then they are traced down and included in a new OA, and further experiments are conducted. If any one of the experiments has shown optimum results, then the

580

Agile manufacturing environment 581

Figure 1. Implementation methodology of Taguchis off-line quality control model

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Figure 2. Features of L4 orthogonal array

corresponding factors and their levels can be implemented in real production. However this will occur very rarely because OA considered initially, always a low resolution one and there may be skepticism about the optimality of factors. To overcome this, a high resolution OA has to be considered and experiments have to be conducted according to this OA. The results of analysis should be utilized to design a modied experiment, which should be conducted with the aim to attain optimality. This is known as conrmation experiment whose results must further be interpreted and analyzed to determine whether optimality has been achieved in practice. If it is felt that optimality is yet to be achieved, then this process should be repeated. Soon after the optimality is achieved in an experiment, then the setup should be implemented in real situation. A careful analysis would indicate that Taguchis off-line model is useful in two ways. First, the time taken in experimentation is greatly reduced. Second, the quality of results obtained are good since the model adopts the OAs for conducting experiments which represent the accurate sample of the entire domain of experimentation. Interestingly, these two benets are found to be coinciding with the imperatives of AM. Taguchis off-line model in AM An overview on the literature indicates that all the research works involving Taguchis off-line models have been conducted by considering quantitative features (Antony, 2002) such as cutting speed, feed, depth of cut, etc. In the case of an AM environment, experiments are required to be conducted not only in areas involving quantitative features but also in subjective areas. In other words, in an AM environment, the quality of not only the products but also of the system should be ascertained. This is due to the reason that, the AM system is not static and is dynamic in nature. Each time a new product or variant of existing product is to be manufactured according to customers requirements, the quality of the system to be employed for the purpose is required to be planned in advance. A critical study indicates that Taguchis off-line model can also be exploited for ensuring the quality of the system employed in an AM environment (Starkey et al., 1997). Whenever a new product is to be introduced experiments need to be designed based on few or all criteria described in Table I. For example if organizational structure is considered as a factor, then semi-vertical structure and full vertical structure are chosen as its levels. An important observation in this regard is the difculty of conducting experimentation. Experimentation consisting of organizational structure as

a factor cannot be practically and feasibly conducted since installing two structures simultaneously or in succession is not possible in practice. Delphi approach can be exploited to overcome this situation. Delphi approach calls for interviewing the experts using carefully designed questionnaires and deriving their unbiased opinions. The responses are analyzed to determine the optimum results (McCarthy and Atthirawong, 2003). Hence, according to the Delphi approach, after designing experiments for enhancing agility by considering critical factors, the executives and employees may be interviewed to evaluate the success rate of each experiment. In case, the opinion derived from different personnel varied widely, then an exposure program may be organized and again interviews may be conducted to assess the success rate of the corresponding experiment. In fact, this approach is a diluted form of brainstorming sessions as insisted by the researchers for conducting experiments based on Taguchis off-line method (Antony, 1999, 2001). In the case of assessing quality of products to be introduced in the AM environment, real time experimentation may be conducted by employing Taguchis off-line model. However, even in this case, exploiting new technologies and methods would not be a prudent proposition and hence, real time experimentation is not encouraged. The reason is that, installing experimental setup requires enormous time and money, both are critical factors in the AM environment. Hence, in the case of optimizing quality of products in the AM environment too, it is suggested that the Delphi approach may be employed. Further, the Delphi approach for experimentation should be so structured that the analysis of results demand the use of simple statistical tools to avoid confusion and consumption of excessive time and money while identifying the optimal set-ups. On the whole, it is appraised that Taguchis off-line model would be a suitable technique to be employed in the AM environment, provided its scope should be enlarged from product quality to system quality aspects. Moreover, as narrated in this section, the conduct of experiments in the AM environment should be modied to the conduct of interviews by adopting the Delphi approach. The exact methodology of exploiting Taguchis off-line model in the AM environment can be understood by referring to the case study presented in the next section. Case study In order to testify the theoretical confabulations of this research project, interest was evoked to carry out a case study. For this purpose, the status of AM in various industrial sectors of manufacturing was overviewed. Even though the manufacturing community has just begun to hear much about agility, it is interesting to note that some industries have already started incorporating certain AM criteria. For example in computer industry, new models are quite frequently introduced to meet the needs of customers of different nature. However this trend is yet to inltrate into other areas like the eld of mechanical engineering, where in spite of tremendous technological developments (CAD, CAM, Robotics, etc.) having taken place, they are not exploited decisively to achieve agility. This has resulted in declined growth of companies, producing traditional products like pumps, compressors etc. One exception to this statement is the automobile industry in which new models are brought out in relatively lesser time during the recent times. In this context, it was felt necessary to apply the theoretical developments to a mechanical engineering industry, which is not yet familiar with AM principles. Accordingly, a small-sized company involved in

Agile manufacturing environment 583

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manufacturing pumps for domestic and agricultural purposes was identied. The company is located in the city of Coimbatore, situated in the southern part of India. Coimbatore city is known for textile and mechanical engineering industries. Besides few electronic-based industries also have come up recently. Although a good industrial culture is prevailing in this city, the annual nancial turnover of the industry as a whole is only moderate since the majority of the industries are small-sized and very few are medium-sized. As the turnover is not very good, these companies delay their decision to invest on the latest manufacturing technologies and philosophies. In spite of this discouraging situation, of late, few companies have started showing keen interest in adopting new manufacturing technologies and philosophies. The company chosen was one among them. The company has three plants and one of them was selected for our study. That plant has 75 employees including executives and produces three models of its product namely submersible, jet, and centrifugal pumps. Out of these, the submersible pump is the most important one because it contributes maximum prot to the company. Moreover, customer base is fast depleting for the other two types of pumps, whereas it is on increasing trend for the submersible pumps. Hence, it was decided that any suggestion for improving its manufacturing would be highly useful to the company for its growth. Due to this reason, it was decided to restrict the study to the manufacturing of the submersible pumps. Even though description of the operational features of the submersible pump is beyond the scope of this paper, in order to have a clear perspective of the submersible models, the parts and specication of them are presented in Table II. In order to infuse agility using Taguchis off-line model, two phases of activities were required to be carried out. In the rst phase, agile product design was considered. The most customer sensitive and important quality related features were given priority while collecting data. These data were used to identify the factors, which would be helpful in imparting agility if a new model were to be designed. The initial analysis indicated that most of the factors are static in nature. This means, the company cannot change values of these factors, as it is not within its control. For example the operating voltage cannot be varied since electric power is supplied at standardized voltage by the government run Power Corporation. Hence, only the variables within the discretion of the design engineer were considered as factors for imparting agility in product design. Accordingly four factors, namely: impeller diameter, impeller thickness, speed, and impeller material were chosen. Apart from this, three more customer sensitive factors, which are not incorporated in existing design, were considered. They were hardness of impeller shaft, incorporation of remote control, and provision for sump level controller. After identifying the factors, levels of each factor had to be determined. It was found out that the existing levels were acceptable to the company since there was no considerable quality problem experienced in the existing design. Hence, it was decided to have level 1 as the existing parameters. However this could be done only in the case of existing factors and could not be done in the case of newly added factors. The factors and levels for agile product experimentation are shown in Table III. On considering the available facilities and time, it was decided to choose L8 OA (Ross, 1996). Seven factors were directly assigned against each column and Table IV was developed by allowing the factors to take their levels. As mentioned earlier, in an AM environment, long lead-time cannot be tolerated. It was decided to look for other

Details RF1/10 0.5 1 240 50 6 2,800 48 1 Radial Noryl 10 16 8,600 RF7/6 1 1 240 50 9 2,800 27 6.6 Radial Noryl 6 28 10,000 RF 4/8 1 1 240,240 50 9 2,800 32 3.6 Radial Noryl 8 26 10,000 RF2/12 1 1 240 50 9 2,800 50 2 Radial Noryl 12 23 10,000 RF1/15 1 1 240 50 9 2,800 72 1 Radial Noryl 15 19 10,000 RF 7/9 1.5 1 240 50 12 2,800 40 6.6 Radial Noryl 9 29 12,000

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7 RF4/12 1.5 1 240 50 12 2,800 48 3.6 Radial Noryl 12 27 12,000

Model 8 RF2/16 1.5 1 240 50 12 2,800 67 2 Radial Noryl 16 20 12,000

Code Power in horse power (HP) Single or 3 phase Voltage (V) Frequency (Hz) Current in amperes Speed in revolutions per minute (rpm) Total head in metres (m) Discharge m3/hour Impeller type Impeller material No. of stages Efciency in percentage Price in Indian rupees (Rs)

Agile manufacturing environment 585

Table II. Parts and specication details of currently manufactured models of submersible pumps

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alternatives in place of conducting practical experiments. Hence, initially, there was a tendency to prefer computer-based animation and simulation packages. However it was noted that many simulation packages were developed based on unrealistic assumptions and hence they fail to represent the reality. Their validity in practical situations is uncertain. Hence, the Delphi approach of interviewing experts for assessing the results of the experiments was adopted. Since the Delphi approach was used, randomizing and repeating of experiments were not carried out. Little difculty was experienced in adopting the Delphi approach, as it was found out that employees of the company were not trained on latest developments. Even managerial level employees did not have sufcient opportunity to keep themselves abreast with the latest developments. But when informed, the management showed keen interest towards adopting them. An attempt was made to expose the details of AM to all the ten managerial level employees. Out of these, two executives assimilated and showed enthusiasm in associating with this project. Hence these two executives were requested to respond according to the requirements of the Delphi approach. But, instead of preparing a questionnaire, due to its simplicity, the Table IV itself was shown to the executives to obtain the responses. The opinions expressed by the two executives are presented in Table V. One of the authors personally sat with the executives to derive their opinions and lled the last three columns of Table V. This personal appraisal was useful in preventing the executives from misinterpreting the details. As shown in Table V, the rst experiment corresponded to the existing manufacturing practice. This experiment was considered as the basis and both the executives assessed the efciency improvement or decrement as the result of proposed experiments. Quite interestingly, both anticipated the efciency improvement in all of the remaining experiments. The difference in efciency improvement, anticipated by both executives, ranged between only 5 percent and 10 percent. Hence the mean values of anticipated efciencies proposed by both executives against each experiment were used for subsequent analysis. The conventional Taguchis approach envisages the use of statistical techniques for analyzing the results of experiments. Since it is a tedious process, it was decided to analyze the results using a simple two-axis graph to extract optimum parameters by either extrapolation or interpolation. Accordingly, the graph shown in Figure 3 was developed. As shown, the efciencies against each experiment were plotted. Efciencies anticipated by the executives showed uniform increasing or decreasing trends. The anticipated efciencies indicated increasing trend from experiment 1 to 3. Between the experiments 3 and 6, it indicated uniformly intermittent increasing and
Levels Sl. no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Factors Impeller diameter in mm Impeller thickness in mm Speed in rpm Material of impeller Hardness in HRC Remote control Sump level controller Level 1 75 25 2,800 Noryl 22 Wire control Wire Ccontrol Level 2 80 30 3,000 Gunmetal 25 Cordless Cordless

Table III. Factors and levels chosen for agile product experimentation

Factors/ expt. no. 25 25 30 30 25 25 30 30 2,800 Gun metal 22 Wire control Cordless 2,800 25 Cordless 3,000 22 Cordless 3,000 25 Wire control Cordless High 3,000 3,000 22 25 Cordless Wire control Cordless High Wire control Moderate 2,800 2,800 22 25 Wire control Cordless Wire control Moderate Cordless Low 0 (reference)

1 2 3 4 Impeller Impeller Speed Impeller dia. in mm thickness mm RPM material Result (efciency) Increase in efciency

5 6 Hardness Remote (HRC) control

7 Sump level controller

Reactions More discharge More discharge More discharge/high head/high speed More discharge/high head

1 2

75 75

3 4

75 75

80

Noryl Gun metal Noryl Gun metal Noryl Wire control Moderate Wire control Very high Moderate

80

80

Gun metal Noryl

80

Agile manufacturing environment 587

Table IV. Design of experiments for product agility

588

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Factors/ expt. no. 25 25 30 30 25 25 30 30 2,800 Gun metal 22 25 Cordless Wire control 22 Cordless 25 Wire control Cordless Wire control Wire control Cordless 22 25 Cordless Wire control Cordless Wire control High Moderate High Moderate Very high Moderate 22 25 Wire control Cordless Wire control Cordless Moderate Low

Table V. Design of experiments for product agility (consolidated) Speed Impeller RPM material Hardness Remote HRC control Sump level controller Increase ( )/decrease(2) Result in efciency Reactions (efciency) 0 (reference) 10 25 15 25 15 30 15 25% 30% more discharge 20% more discharge 2,800 Noryl 2,800 Gun metal 3,000 Noryl 3,000 Gun metal 3,000 Noryl 50% more discharge/high head/high speed 30% 3,000 Gun metal 2,800 Noryl 60% more discharge/high head 30%

Impeller dia. in mm

Impeller thickness mm

1 2

75 75

3 4

75 75

80

80

80

80

Agile manufacturing environment 589

Figure 3. Graphical analysis of the results of experiments on agile product design

decreasing trends. From experiment number 6, it increased to a peak towards experiment number 7 and then showed decreasing trend towards the eighth experiment. On the whole, it revealed that experiment number 7 would offer maximum efciency. However there was a chance that if an experiment is designed by incorporating intermediate levels of non-sensitive factors of the seventh and eighth experiments, it might still yield better efciency. During the interviews, the executives indicated the factors, which are very sensitive from manufacturing point of view. According to them, the levels of these factors cannot be so easily altered. Hence it was decided to conduct one conrmation experiment (that is, by interviewing the same executives again) by incorporating revised and modied levels of the non-sensitive factors. The details of this experiment are shown in Table VI. Both executives were interviewed by informing about the details of the ninth experiment. The mean anticipated efciency increase was 35 percent, which is the highest of all the experiments conducted so far. This conrmed with the graphical extrapolation that was carried out theoretically. Moreover the executives anticipated that on incorporation of the factors and levels of conrmation experiment, there will be an increase of 75 percent increase in discharge volume and delivery head in comparison to the present factors and levels adopted. Hence, it was inferred that agile product design has been achieved. Agile process design The rst phase of the experimentation revealed the possibilities of imparting agility in products by rening the existing design by conducting limited number of experiments using the Delphi approach. As mentioned in the previous section, it was anticipated that adoption of a suitable OA for the purpose of interviewing executives would provide an optimum solution for imparting system agility. However the system becomes agile only if the agility criteria are implemented in a feasible form. In order to carry out this task, the second phase of experimentation became a necessity. Hence, theoretically drawn 20 agility criteria (shown in Table I) were examined for the possibilities of adoption in the company. Out of all, it was found that 11 criteria were found to be critical and feasible for adoption in the company. The fundamental reason behind in selecting these criteria was that, the company has not yet adopted these criteria, but it was ready to implement them in stages. However implementation in stages would consume considerable amount of time. Hence, it was discernible that a

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Factors expt. no. 30 30 30 2,800 2,800 Gunmetal Noryl 22 23 Wire control Semi-power control 2,800 Noryl 25 Cordless

Table VI. Design of experiments for product agility conrmation experimentation 2 Impeller thickness mm Speed Impeller RPM material Hardness Remote (HRC) control Sump level controller 3 4 5 6 7 Result (efciency) Increase in efciency 30 Moderate Best 15 35 Cordless Semi-power control Reactions (level of acceptance) Wire control Very high 60% more discharge/high head 30% 75% more discharge/high head

1 Impeller dia. in mm

80

8 9 Conrmation experiment

80 80

most feasible combination of traditional and agility criteria would serve the immediate purpose of attaining agility in the system. This will enhance the implementation feasibility of agile product design achieved during the rst stage. The 11 criteria were considered as factors and subsequently their levels were decided. The levels were chosen in such a way that traditional approach was considered as level 1 and agile approach as level 2 and were denoted by the symbol followed by numerals 1 or 2 as the case may be. L12 OA was chosen and accordingly. Table VII was formed by assigning the factors and their levels. Unlike in the case of agile product design, Table VII was not shown to the executives since it was realized that it would be difcult for the executives to imagine the holistic view of each experiment. In order to overcome this, a questionnaire containing 12 questions was prepared for each experiment. Both executives were given the questionnaire pertaining to experiment 1. The executives were guided while responding to the questions. The remaining experiments were conducted by interviewing the executives by modifying the questionnaire suitability. But the overall format was not changed. In addition to the questionnaire, each executive was given a response sheet and requested to encircle against each question to denote the success rate. Due to lack of space, the questionnaire and the response sheet are not included in this paper. The encircled numbers were multiplied by a factor 10 to convert them into a percentage of success rate. The mean percentage success rates against all questions were identied as agility success rate corresponding to that experiment. Apart from this, the executives were requested to assess their acceptance rating of each experiment. In some cases, it was noted that, in spite of higher efciencies, executives expressed different rates of acceptance for implementing the factors and levels for the experiments in practice due to various reasons. The efciencies and acceptance ratings along with the mean values are shown in Table VIII. The results of agile system design experiments are shown in Figure 4 as a two-dimensional graph. Table VII reveals that experiments 2, 8, and 12 result in maximum possible efciencies in obtaining system agility. Hence, the levels of different factors in these three experiments were analyzed further and the levels with maximum success efciency rating were extracted to create a level for conrmation experiment. The details are presented in Table IX. In this, experiment 13 is the conrmation experiment. The assignments of levels are described here for factor 1. In the case of factor 1, the level 2 was given a high rating by the executives. Hence, in the conrmation experiment level 2 was assigned under factor 1. Likewise all levels were allotted and a corresponding questionnaire was prepared. Again each executive was interviewed and the nal test results were obtained. These results are shown in Table X. The mean agility efciency of 67.6 percent was anticipated by the executives. Followed by this, acceptance level was also revealed by them whose mean was 58 percent. As these two values were highest of all other experiments, it was inferred that if the company implements the agility criteria with the levels shown in conrmation experiment (number 13), then the journey for attaining agility would be smooth and quick. Concluding remarks AM is also viewed as a set of bridges which are meant for integrating technologies and management philosophies (Sarkis, 2001). Most of the other methods and philosophies

Agile manufacturing environment 591

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Factors Status of quality S1 S1 S2 S1 S2 S2 S2 S2 S1 S2 S1 S1 E1 E1 E2 E2 E1 E2 E2 E1 E2 E1 E2 E1 C1 C1 C2 C2 C2 C1 C1 C2 C2 C1 C2 C1 D1 D2 D1 D1 D2 D2 D1 D2 D2 D1 D2 D1 MP1 MP2 MP1 MP2 MP1 MP2 MP2 MP2 MP1 MP1 MP1 MP2 SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM Customer response

Expt. no. M1 M1 M1 M2 M2 M2 M1 M1 M1 M2 M2 M2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Table VII. Design of experiments for system agility 3 4 Employee involvement 1 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 5 6 Design improvement 7 8 9 10 11 Supply Manufacchain Employee Automation IT turing status type integration planning management ES1 ES2 ES2 ES1 ES1 ES2 ES1 ES1 ES2 ES2 ES1 ES2 A1 A2 A2 A1 A2 A1 A2 A1 A1 A1 A2 A2 IT IT IT IT IT IT IT IT IT IT IT IT 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 1

1 Organization structure

2 Manufacturing set-up

O1 O1 O1 O1 O1 O1 O2 O2 O2 O2 O2 O2

Experiment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Executive 1 SR % 59.00 60.00 56.40 56.40 58.20 57.30 56.36 60.90 58.20 55.50 57.20 59.10

Executive 2 SR % 55.00 59.00 52.70 54.50 55.50 52.70 52.70 55.50 55.50 51.80 57.30 56.40

SR average % 57 60 54 55 57 55 54 58 57 54 57 58

Executive 1 AL % 50 60 60 50 60 40 40 50 50 60 50 60

Executive 2 AL % 40 70 60 55 50 50 50 40 50 50 50 50

AL average % 45 65 60 53 55 45 45 45 50 55 50 55

Remarks

Agile manufacturing environment 593

High value

Note: SR success rate; AL acceptance level

Table VIII. Percentage of efciencies and acceptance values

Figure 4. Graphical analysis of the results of experiments on system

emerged during recent years emphasize either partial or no integration of technology and management. As the trend of AM spreads very fast and has already captured quite a number of manufacturing companies and research laboratories, it is high time that the conventional techniques applied in traditional manufacturing environments are required to be examined for their compatibility in AM environments. In this context, the piece of research work reported in this paper was taken up by considering Taguchis off line quality control method in AM environment. Since the authors are residing in a city with companies wherein the recent research ndings take a long time to penetrate, it was not possible to identify an AM company. Hence a manufacturing company, which is following traditional approach, was chosen. Fortunately the

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Factors Employee involvement E1 E1 E1 E1 C1 C2 C2 C2 D2 D2 D1 D2 MP2 MP2 MP2 MP2 Customer response

Expt. no. S1 S2 S1 S1

2 8 12 13

Table IX. Conrmation experiment for organizational agility 4 5 6 8 Supply chain management SCM 2 SCM 1 SCM 1 SCM 2 9 10 11 Employee Automation IT status type integration ES2 ES1 ES2 ES1 A2 A1 A2 A2 IT IT IT IT 2 2 1 2 7 Manufacturing Design improvement planning

1 2 3 Organi- Manufacturing Status of zation quality structure set-up

O1 O2 O2 O2

M1 M1 M2 M1

Experiment 2 8 12 13

Executive 1 SR % 60 60.9 59.1 67.2

Executive 2 SR % 59 55.5 56.4 68.1

SR average % 60 58 58 67.6

Executive 1 AL % 60 50 60 60

Executive 2 AL % 70 40 50 55

AL average % 65 45 55 58

Remarks

Agile manufacturing environment 595

Highest SR

Table X. Final test results

management showed keen interest on AM and the work enjoyed full support of both management and employees. In spite of this positive factor, the results evolved out of this research project are yet to be implemented, as the management is required to make a major decision in this direction. In future it is proposed to insist the management to implement the results of this project, which will be monitored continuously, and changes or modications will be suitably carried out in the levels of factors. Further due to shortage of time, Taguchis online quality control methods were not examined during this study which is left for future work. On the whole, this work creates an impression that Taguchi methods with suitable renements will be useful in imparting agility in traditional organizations.
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