Manufacturing Today Issue 205 Issue 205 - October 2022 | Page 22

Challenge or opportunity ?

A playbook for Agile in Manufacturing
By Steve Martin

The concept of Agile , its systems and project management methodologies , is widely recognized across the manufacturing industry and so are its benefits . Since Japanese industrial engineer and businessman Ohno Taiichi introduced the ‘ Kanban ’ system in Toyota in the 1950s , the industry has kept an open mind to lean manufacturing processes that can help identify waste areas , improve output and yield higher profits . Even though Agile has been around for a while and has infiltrated other industries evolving along the way , the manufacturing industry often still associates it with tech processes and improvements , focusing only on the operational side of things .

Agile teams over Agile systems
It ’ s true that Agile processes and transformation can help companies develop a competitive advantage in today ’ s fast-moving marketplace . After all , it was Toyota ’ s Production System that laid the foundation for modern management techniques and transformed the company , which at the time was operating at a loss , into the global competitor it is today . However , these historical benefits are perhaps what can hold the industry back from looking at how far Agile has come and how it ’ s embedded itself as a philosophy in many successful organizations . One of the biggest breakthroughs for Agile
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