Evaluation of Operational Flexibility for a Manufacturing Organization

Abstract

Flexibility in the context of an organization is the ability of it to respond and cope with uncertainties. These uncertainties can be both internal as well as external. Therefore, it has become very critical to manage and effectively react to several uncertainties posed by today’s changing environment. Operational flexibility is a formative approach to meet the demand of a customer during a changing environment. The research focuses on operational flexibility at a micro-level in the context of an Indian manufacturing organization, ‘XYZ’. By referring to past literature and experts’ opinion, 7 main and 28 sub-attributes have been established as the parameters for measuring the operational flexibility index. The study is an approach to evaluate operational flexibility through the fuzzy logic approach. The research concludes that the organization is found to be ‘very flexible’ in its routine operations. © IEOM Society International.