Studies on some aspects of agility appraisement: empirical research and case studies in Indian perspective

Abstract

The thesis highlights decision-making problems in relation to agility evaluation as well as
appraisement of agile enterprises followed be suppliers’ selection in agile supply chain.
Various aspects have been covered (i) Supply Chain Agility Appraisement and (ii)
Appraisement of Agility in Mass Customized Product Manufacturing (iii) Organizational
Agility and Benchmarking of Agile Enterprises, (iv) Interrelationship amongst Agile
Capabilities/Enablers, (v) Identification of Agile Barriers etc.
Appraisement modules (appraisement index systems) have been proposed utilizing the
concept of generalized fuzzy numbers, Interval-Valued Fuzzy Numbers (IVFNs) as well
as grey numbers.
The study provides in-depth understanding on hierarchical interrelationship amongst
various agility dimensions required to assess organizational as well as supply chain
agility. Agility appraisement modules have been proposed to perform both in fuzzy as
well as grey environment. Agility barriers have been identified as well. The outcome of
the empirical research as well as case study conducted in two Indian industries
(automotive and railway construction at eastern India) have been critically analyzed. The
influence of decision-makers’ risk bearing attitude over agility assessment and related
decision-making has also been focused in this work. An efficient fuzzy embedded
performance appraisement module has been proposed to facilitate suppliers’ evaluation
cum selection process in agile supply chain.
There exist a number of agility indices (metrics) that influence the extent of
organizational agility. By evaluating these indices, appropriate ranking order of
alternative agile enterprises can be determined. This being the basic fundamental of
Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), it can effectively be explored towards
benchmarking of agile enterprises. Evaluating the candidate agile alternatives and
comparing across them, the best practices of the efficient organization can easily be
identified and transferred to different organizations.
Indian manufacturing industries prefer to maintain status-quo and hardly go for changes
(or transformation). However, today’s market compulsion due to liberalization and
globalization of demands that manufacturing firms must be agile enough to serve
continuously changing unpredicted needs of the customers in an effective manner. The
changes in terms of being agile are not easy enough due to several environmental,
managerial and technical considerations. Analysis of drivers of agile manufacturing and
their interaction with various aspects in integrative planning can be a valuable source of
information to the decision-makers (DMs) for its successful implementation. In doing so,
the managers can derive important insights into the problem and explore the said drivers
efficiently to overcome those obstacles.
Agility evaluation problem can be viewed as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM)
problem involving qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation criterions. Quantitative
criterions (attributes) can be tackled by traditional tools and approaches. Difficulty arises
in dealing with subjective qualitative selection criterions. In this thesis, fuzzy logic (as
well as grey theory) has been proposed to tackle decision-makers’ subjective
information/judgment in relation to agility appraisement and related decision-making
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problems. Literature is rich enough in addressing various decision-modeling problems
using generalized fuzzy numbers; therefore, fruitful incorporation of Interval-Valued
Fuzzy Numbers theory and grey theory definitely added value (contribution) pursued in
data analysis (empirical as well as case studies) in this thesis. Use of ‘Fuzzy Degree of
Similarity’ concept in identifying weak (ill-performing) areas (called agile barriers) in an
agile supply chain appears to be a unique contribution in this work.