Analysis of the structural measures of flexibility and agility using a measurement theoretical framework

Manufacturing firms have great interest in developing flexible and agile manufacturing systems, These manufacturing system strategies seek to leverage the inherent properties of the technologies and systems for competitive advantage. Measurement has always played a role in planning and managing these complex systems. Most measurement systems concentrate on operational measures of the system, however, many of the manufacturing strategies are based on structural properties embodied in the system architecture, technology resources, and system control policies. We present a measurement framework to analyze measures of structural properties of the enterprise system. The measurement framework provides a mathematical foundation for formalizing our intuition of what constitutes a measure. Our analysis reveals undesirable properties of some measures, mainly because they are developed without any formal basis. The measurement framework can provide a consistent basis for specifying and using measures, which will empower system designers to better incorporate desirable structural properties to align system design with enterprise strategy. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.