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:Human Factors in Agile Manufacturing
A Brief Overview with Emphasis on
Communications and Information Infrastructure

Chris Forsythe
Sandia National Laboratories, MS 0829, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0829

ABSTRACT
Agile manufacturing has been promoted as a national strategy for improving industrial competitiveness.
Agility refers to the capability to very rapidly go from a set of unique customer requirements
to a quality, finished product. An appreciation of the human factors inherent to agile product
development is pivotal to the successful integration of agility-enabling technologies, as well as the
coordination of personnel working within a concurrent engineering environment. This article briefly
summarizes human factors contributions to: (1) development of agile business practices; (2) design
of enabling technologies; and (3) management of the introduction and fielding of new technologies
and business practices. More detailed discussion is offered for human factors related to the communications
and information infrastructure essential to an organization making the transition from
traditional to agile product development. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

1. INTRODUCTION
As industries position themselves for the competitive markets of today, and the increasingly
competitive global markets of the 21st century, agility, or the ability to rapidly develop
and produce new products, represents a common trend (Kovac, 1993; Levary, 1992;
Nagel and Dove 1992). Agility manifests itself in many different forms, with the agile
manufacturing paradigm proposed by the Iacocca Institute offering a generally accepted,
long-term vision (Nagel and Dove, 1992). In its many forms, common elements of agility
or agile manufacturing include: (1) changes in business, engineering, and production practices;
(2) seamless information flow from design through production; (3) integration of
computer and information technologies into all facets of product development and production
processes; (4) application of communications technologies to enable collaborative
work between geographically dispersed product development team members; and (5)
introduction of flexible automation of production processes.

Industry has rarely experienced as dramatic an infusion of new technologies or as extensive
a change in culture and work practices. In recognition of these emerging trends, a
panel session entitled Human Factors in Agile Manufacturing was held at the 1995 Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society Meetings in San Diego, CA, USA to discuss human
factors issues relevant to agile manufacturing and to present different perspectives on
those issues. The articles appearing in this special issue represent the perspectives presented
at that panel session and reflect the continuing evolution of thought concerning
these matters. This article briefly summarizes human factors related to the development of agile business practices, design of enabling technologies, and management of the introduction
of new technologies and business practices. Afterwards, more thorough discussion
is offered concerning human factors related to the communications and information
infrastructure essential to an enterprise fully realizing agility.

2

DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS PRACTICES

Implementation of agile manufacturing requires, at a minimum, extensive modification
of existing business practices, but often complete overhaul of existing practices (Greiss,
1993). In a market environment where corporate success hinges on rapid turnaround of
quality products, each new product development effort cannot begin from a blank slate.
Instead, corporations must maximize their ability to capture and utilize corporate history
and lessons learned (Goldman and Priess, 1992). Likewise, manufacturing processes fitted
to the demands of a given product must be replaced by flexible systems composed of
different pieces of equipment that readily accommodate a range of product parameters
(Brost et al., 1992; Staffend, 1992). Serial progression of designs through the product
development cycle is unacceptable. Concurrent engineering of designs is desirable, but
collaborative design is preferred for fast-paced design decisions in an environment that
offers little or no tolerance for error (Forsythe and Ashby, 1994). For the development of
agile business practices, there needs to be consideration of human factors affecting decision
making within fast-paced, dynamic environments (Eisenhardt, 1989). Likewise, knowledge
of team dynamics, individual information requirements and information flow,
information management and utilization, and monitoring and assessment of the status of
complex, dynamic systems is needed (Forsythe and Ashby, 1996). These areas have received
considerable attention from human factors within military, space, aviation, and
traffic domains, but little attention within business contexts.

Of comparable importance to accomplishing the goals of agile manufacturing as product
design and manufacture is the corporate administrative and infrastructure support structure.
Support for the communications and information infrastructure is of particular concern.
System and software compatibility is essential to the seamless flow of product data through
the agile enterprise (Forsythe and Ashby, 1996).With major vendors on update cycles of
6 months or less, this compatibility cannot be maintained without the coordination and
empowerment of administrative and support staff. With agile manufacturing, integration
and networking of information technologies occurs at all levels of the enterprise. As a
consequence, the enterprise must address the support needs of a complex infrastructure
and the numerous human points of failure in supporting such an infrastructure (Haney
et al., 1994). When information does not flow, due to technical or human causes, agility
is lost. For this reason, elimination of human points of failure in infrastructure support is
essential (Forsythe and Ashby, 1996).

3

DESIGN OF ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

Agile manufacturing is possible primarily as a result of recent and projected technical
innovations. Human factors has an important role to play: first in technology development,
and second in defining technology systems and their usage (Karwowski, 1994).
Use of computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD and CAM) systems to electronically
represent product design is fundamental to agile manufacturing (Bertoline et al., 1995). Currently, CAD and CAM technologies are advancing at a phenomenal pace, with
alternative vendors in a race to keep up with each other. Unfortunately, users express
frequent discontent with the usability of these systems. Furthermore, capabilities of CAD
and CAM systems are underutilized, partially because they have not been fully integrated
into existing work practices (Forsythe and Ashby, 1996). As CAD and CAM systems, as
well as related product data managers, are implemented at the enterprise level, human
factors should ideally be incorporated into improved user interface designs. At a minimum,
human factors and usability should play a large part in benchmarking and similar
assessments of alternative commercial products.

4

MANAGEMENT OF THE INTRODUCTION AND FIELDING OF NEW
TECHNOLOGIES AND BUSINESS PRACTICES

The above issues are significant, but the most significant challenges posed by agile manufacturing
are sociotechnical (Forsythe and Ashby, 1996). If users are unwilling or reluctant
to accept agile business practices and enabling technologies, agile manufacturing
will fail from the inability to overcome the inertia of traditional, often deeply ingrained
practices. With little exception, businesses that will adopt agile manufacturing over the
next 5 to 10 years are currently designing and manufacturing products, with some success.
Agile manufacturing poses threats to the comfort of managers and line workers
alike. For management, there is a substantial relinquishment of power by the empowerment
of product development teams and the increased openness of information. For the
designer, much control is lost in the collaborative development of designs. At the level of
the line worker, there is increased, often undesired, responsibility in being brought into
the product development decision-making process, not to mention the threats posed by
computerization and automation of fabrication and assembly tasks. All of these threats
occur within an often stressful, fast-paced environment in which cognitively demanding
decision-making tasks replace most mundane, largely undemanding tasks.