Making the Leap to Agility

Deals with agile manufacturing, a new paradigm originating in the US. The paradigm is related to existing precepts by the main organizing framework of stage models. Argues that agile manufacturing is, coincident with the post‐industrial paradigm, the proposed replacement for today′s increasingly outmoded industrial paradigm of mass production. Further connections are made with stage models that describe the organizational transformation potential arising from the enabling capabilities of information technology. Consequently, business process redesign and business network redesign are highlighted as the main transformational mechanisms enabling the transition to the new paradigm. Currently dominant approaches to change generation and management, such as continuous improvement or total quality management, are described as inadequate to foster the desired radical transformation. Addresses some brief closing comments to the practical problems and theoretical concerns thrown up by the analysis.