Labour flexibility: Impact of functional and localised strategies on team-based product manufacturing

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between labour flexibility and effective team working, which are two of the most sought after properties in today's dynamic and competitive manufacturing environment. This is due in no small part to the growth of modern manufacturing principles and philosophies such as just-in-time, lean manufacturing, total quality management, world class manufacturing and flexible manufacturing systems. These systems strongly advocate the need for both teamwork and flexibility. The central platform for realising these philosophies is the popular and well-known manufacturing process, cellular manufacturing. In this paper, an empirical study is undertaken to explore the impact of two labour flexibility strategies (functional and intra-cell flexibility) on the effectiveness of team working within cellular manufacturing environment. The study found that functional flexibility had an overall stronger, significant effect on team processes (communication, conflict resolution, problem solving, goals and performance, tasks and planning) than did intra-cell flexibility. The study also found that functional flexibility improved team outputs in areas such as customer delivery, inventory holdings and quality.