Efficient change management for the flexible production of the future

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this article is to introduce an innovative methodology to support manufacturing changes in the foundation of flexibility measurements and evaluations and to integrate this in the companies' internal as well as companies' cross‐organisational processes of change management. Design/methodology/approach The approach consists of two phases: first, a consistent systematics for the production systems flexibility evaluation is presented; second, the change processes are analysed and quantified flexibility indicators are integrated to support the decision – making process. Findings The application of the methodology in manufacturing environments has demonstrated that consideration of flexibility in the production and its integration into the manufacturing change processes has a great potential. Originality/value The originality of this work is in the integrated approach to consider flexibility as support for the change management. In particular the integration of quantified flexibility measurements into the change processes comes out to be the real innovation of the project.