A hybrid approach based on Gap Analysis-FQFD to achieve agility

Many companies are pursuing agile manufacturing in order to reduce costs, improve customer service and attaining competitive advantage. After reviewing theoretical background and literature on agility, this paper presents agility attributes, criteria and enablers. Then a framework developed in order to prioritize and analyze agility indices with considering major competitive advantage. Hybrid Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (FQFD) and Gap Analysis (GA) approach used to prioritize indices based on experts in an organization. Findings point out that “manufacturing management agility” has lowest maturity among agility enablers that lead this enabler to takes maximum importance. Furthermore, “manufacturing management agility” obtained most weight by FQFD, meaning this enabler has maximum priority and importance for organization. Interestingly, “knowledge management criterion” got first priority among all criteria by regarding maximum gap in gap analysis approach.