Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
SNIP
> Anybody know anything on this list about LEAN and AGILE? (I checked
> the LO archives and could only find one reference to it, which didn't
> say anything.) I have a few friends who are the "Angel Fish" in those
> MIT experiments going on in the corporations here. It's ruining
> their middle-aged lives and shows great promise at explaining why
> downsizing to temporary employees is no longer a reason for
> shareholders to abandon a stock. In fact they now do the opposite.
> Anything to say about that Thomas?
I work at Agile. One of the key texts is "Agile Competition and Virtual
Organizations", Goldman, Nagel, Preiss, VNR, 1995. You can also check out
the monthly articles by Rick Dove in Production Magazine (will be
Automotive Production soon). If you can't get ahold of Rick's stuff,
email me and I'll send you some.
Some URL's of interest to Agility:
http://web.mit.edu/ctpid/www/agile/AGILE-home.html
http://absu.amef.lehigh.edu
http://www.sandia.gov/advmfgtech/AMT.html
In short, Agility is the ability of an organization to respond to rapid,
unpredictable change in a manner that enriches the customer. It is
sometimes seen as the difference between mass production and mass
customization.
Lean is the ability of an organization to minimize the use of resources in
fulfulling orders.
-- jzavacki@epix.net John Zavacki The Wolff Group 900 James Avenue Scranton, PA 18510 Phone: 717-346-1218 Fax: 717-346-1388