Manufacturing flexibility and rapid product innovation: Two key manufacturing decision issues in turbulent business environment

Abstract

In recent years, business environment has been perceived to be more turbulent. Manufacturing flexibility (MF) is widely considered as ability aimed at dealing with environment changes; meanwhile, rapid product innovation (RPI) has high priority to get competitive advantage in this kind of environment. They are both related to many important manufacturing decisions. This paper concentrates on analyzing MF, RPI and their relationship to help manufacture managers to make better decisions, so that manufacturing company can create and maintain competitive advantage in turbulent business environment.