Re: Agile manufacturing LO2450

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 18 Aug 1995 09:13:08 +0000

Replying to LO2434 --

Holger's comments on flexibility and agility and their relationship
to organisation point out that there is something that we might call
"identity" at the heart of the matter. Begin infinitely flexible or
adaptable means to have not identity.

> possibly the idea of
> 'total agility' might even per definitionem contradict the idea of an
> organization.

I think the statement might be valid about "organisation" but it must
be valid for "corporation". I think it's very useful to distinguish
these terms because we need to talk about the phenomenon of
organisation and using the same term for a particular organisational
form and identity which is a corporation will introduce more
ambiguity than is useful.

> In my view, an enterprise has to create an adequate mix of
> 'rigidities' and 'agilities' in order achieve its goals.

The theories of complex adaptive systems, of evolution, of biology,
of communication and of information all support this view and provide
useful analogies and metaphors for locating an organisation in the
balance and interplay of these.

>The role of
> learning will be to improve the organization's capability to adjust this
> mix according to changing circumstances or goals, i.e learning means
> agility on a secondary level.

Learning is a grander process than this. It does include what you
say but why is its "role" deemed to be this? Surely learning is the
broadest arena which is called for whenever what is already known and
automatic will not suffice.

> Empirical evidence shows that the mere labelling multi-purpose machinery
> as 'flexible' does not guarantee any successes under the often cited
> market conditions of turbulence and complexity.

Identity is a condition of boundaries of some kind - linguistic or
physical or operational - where we can identity "us" and "not us".
These need not be rigid in time or from relationship to relationship
but we cannot see an entity (identity) without them. What comes with
this phenomenon in living beings is choice. Even the relatively
simple application of "multi-purpose machinery" brings up the choice
as Holger so clearly states. In a complex world, very little is
simple.

Planning, controlling procedures (and designing them),
implementation, flexibility at strategic levels, modify
organisational structures, directing knowledge to useful purposes -
these are all conditions that call for learning.

While in some contexts learning is usefully considered as
"multi-staged", in the broader and more general context, I think it's
more useful to think of learning as interconnected webs which have
different levels of abstraction or interdependence but no ultimate
"hier" or "lower" and no abstractly "better starting place".

Learning how to be agile, and where to be agile, and to what degree
are matters of choice and continual development as much as the
specifics as how to accomplish the intention. The intention and the
approach are intimately related.

--
Michael McMaster
Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk