Agile Enablers Research Articles

Modelling the Enablers of Workforce Agility in IoT Projects: A TISM Approach

IoT projects can be categorized as high technology with an extremely dynamic product development lifecycle. To be a leader under such conditions, organizations need to focus priorities on achieving shorter product development cycle along with organization agility and workforce agility. Many researchers have tried to identify the enablers that affect workforce agility in different segments, but none has really looked into the IoT project environment. In this paper, efforts are taken to model the enablers of workforce agility in IoT projects and to understand the interrelationship among enablers using total interpretive structural modelling. The current study makes an attempt to provide a hierarchical structure representing the driving enablers and the dependent enablers and to give the order of enablers with respect to influence on workforce agility. Results indicate that employee proactivity, innovativeness, resiliency skills and ownership or self-motivation bring agility in the workforce. These enablers help employees to act in all decision-making situations to achieve IoT organization goals faster.

Information technology outsourcing and architecture dynamic capabilities as enablers of organizational agility

Grounded in the dynamic capabilities perspective, our study addresses the question of how information technology outsourcing capabilities can interact with other IT strategic capabilities to enable organizational agility through the ongoing reconfiguration of IT solutions. To answer our question, we built on the notion of microfoundations that undergird the high-level dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. Adopting a theory elaboration approach, we studied the case of a firm evolving in a turbulent environment, which had outsourced the quasi-totality of its IT services and had a mature IT architecture. From the case data, we specify two types of microfoundations: repeatability-related microfoundations (i.e. processes) and ability-related microfoundations (i.e. IT department structure, skills, simple rules, and communications) that undergird either information technology outsourcing dynamic capabilities or IT architecture dynamic capabilities. We propose a model that outlines how the interaction between repeatability-related microfoundations, supported by ability-related microfoundations, enables the reconfiguration of IT solutions. Our study also elucidates how a firm can follow a logic of opportunity enabled by their IT outsourcing and IT architecture dynamic capabilities.

Enablers of clinician involvement inclination, care delivery agility and clinical productivity

Purpose Healthcare services have enormous potential for growth in the country. However, the drivers of clinical productivity are yet to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of clinician buy-in, clinician ease of use, clinician work stream flexibility and device placement comfort on clinician’ s involvement. The study further examines the effect of converged devices implementation and wireless portable devices adoption on care delivery agility. Lastly, the authors examine the influence of clinician’s involvement and care delivery agility on clinical productivity. Design/methodology/approach Measures for the constructs were developed from extant literature and expert feedback complemented with pre-testing. Further, perceptual responses were collected from 221 doctors through internet surveys and were analyzed using partial least squares. Findings The study identified clinician’s ease of use and workflow streamlining flexibility as key enablers of clinician’s involvement. Findings further reveal that converged devices implementation and wireless portable adoption as prominent enablers of care delivery agility. Further, the authors found clinician’s involvement and care delivery agility to have a positive contribution in enhancing clinical productivity. Research limitations/implications The study has collected perceptual responses from doctors practicing both in hospitals and private clinics and their perceptions have been based on their experiences at those specific institutions or sites, which may limit generalizability of the current study findings. This study incorporated only doctors and ignored other assistant staffs’ perceptions who assisted and aided doctors in executing treatment procedures either in private clinics or hospitals. Practical implications The study has practical implications for enhancing clinical productivity. Social implications The study findings highlight the role of process focus and infrastructure focus on the human elements of involvement and agility which often play pivotal role for motivation for individual physicians and their productivity. Originality/value The study is the foremost to develop perceptual measures for several constructs in the healthcare services.

Designing Agility Enablers Model in Universities

Designing Agility Enablers Model in Universities

A comparative analysis of factor analysis model for pinpointing agile developers

Agile manufacturing is an emerging approach of engineering to deal with dynamic demand of customer and market. The prime factors that influence agility are agile developers and enablers. Agile developers are mainly less investment factors that are basically governed by managerial power. To find out most important agile developers, a survey-based study was conducted with the aim to develop model for agility developers and measure its level in Indian manufacturing industries. It was hypotheses that sensitiveness to change, relationship with customer, relationship with supplier, flexibility and competency and responsiveness is not significant with agile manufacturing. The data were analysed by ANOVA test, different factor analysis techniques and a complete regression model for agile developer was prepared with the help of analytic hierarchy process. It was found that design excellence and decision flexibility variables have highest importance among all components and developers are being used almost at their 50% level.

Analysis of manufacturing supply chain agility performance using Taguchi loss functions and design of experiment

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the agility performance level of manufacturing supply chains using Taguchi loss functions (TLFs) and design of experiment (DoE).Design/methodology/approachThe proposed methodology is used for capturing the various agility losses using appropriate TLFs and the aggregated agility loss is calculated at different situations using DoE. The aggregated agility loss is analysed for comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance.FindingsThe proposed methodology was applied to three Indian auto component supply chains, i.e. X, Y and Z. In total, 27 experiments were carried out using DoE and obtained results show that agility performance level is the highest for X followed by Z, whereas agility performance level is the least for Y.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed methodology is generic in nature and can be applied to a specific environment for comparing performance of different supply chains. The user has to identify the relevant agility enablers and capture the appropriate TLFs for the specific environment in which agility performance level has to be calculated and compared.Practical implicationsThe proposed methodology provides an effective approach for evaluating agility performance. It can be used by the supply chain manger to assess the supply chain agility performance level of own company with its competitors. These comparisons will help the manufacturing company to find the areas where it should focus.Originality/valueMany studies and researches related to implementation and evaluation of agile manufacturing are reported in the literature but very few studies are available for evaluating the supply chain agility performance. This study will definitely provide a guideline for measuring and comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance in general and Indian automotive supply chain in specific.

An investigation of agile manufacturing enablers in Indian automotive SMEs using structural equation model

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the agile manufacturing practices in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within the auto-ancillary sector spread across eastern India. Using statistical method, a number of crucial insights have been captured and discussed in detail. Design/methodology/approach A structural equation model (SEM) encapsulating pertinent agile manufacturing attributes and enablers as the focal construct is conceptualized and validated in this research. The SEM model is evolved in a manner that agile attributes and agile enablers are modeled as latent dependent and manifest variable, respectively. Findings A number of key hypothesis entailing interactions of key agility enablers, i.e. manufacturing responsiveness agility, manufacturing strategy agility, workforce agility, technology agility, manufacturing management agility, etc. are conceptualized and validated. Originality/value The authors specifically focus on evolving agile manufacturing framework (characterized by agility enablers and attributes) that lies at the intersection of SMEs, automotive sector and an emerging economy.

The influence of big data analytics management capabilities on supply chain preparedness, alertness and agility

PurposeThe importance of big data analytics (BDA) on the development of supply chain (SC) resilience is not clearly understood. To address this, the purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of BDA management capabilities, namely, BDA planning, BDA investment decision making, BDA coordination and BDA control on SC resilience dimensions, namely, SC preparedness, SC alertness and SC agility.Design/methodology/approachThe study relied on perceptual measures to test the proposed associations. Using extant measures, the scales for all the constructs were contextualized based on expert feedback. Using online survey, 249 complete responses were collected and were analyzed using partial least squares in SmartPLS 2.0.M3. The study targeted professionals with sufficient experience in analytics in different industry sectors for survey participation.FindingsResults indicate BDA planning, BDA coordination and BDA control are critical enablers of SC preparedness, SC alertness and SC agility. BDA investment decision making did not have any prominent influence on any of the SC resilience dimensions.Originality/valueThe study is important as it addresses the contribution of BDA capabilities on the development of SC resilience, an important gap in the extant literature.

Flexibility and agility: evolution and relationship

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to clarify the confusion between flexibility and agility. The paper traces the evolution of agility and the evolution of flexibility over time, analyses their drivers and different elements, draws the boundaries between them and defines their relationship.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review of flexibility and agility was developed. Papers written between 1920 and 2017 were reviewed and analyzed using a structured review technique. The identified papers focus on flexibility and agility, relating both to manufacturing and the supply chain.FindingsAgility is the natural evolution of flexibility. Until the 1990s, the term “flexibility” was used to refer to agility, but, because of market changes, competitiveness and the need for speed, the term “agility” was coined. While flexibility is considered as an operational ability, agility is a strategic ability that enables a firm to establish a strategic long-term vision. In fact, flexibility is an agility capability, among other capabilities such as responsiveness or speed. There are also several types of flexibility that are used as agility sub-capabilities, or as agility enablers, which further confirms the idea that flexibility is a part of agility.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is a systematic review of the existing literature on the concepts of flexibility and agility. Although it is theoretical, it could provide a set of hypotheses that would enable an empirical study to be conducted into how firms from different industries perceive flexibility and agility and how they implement each of them.Originality/valueFlexibility and agility are two distinct characteristics that enable a firm to gain a competitive advantage by responding quickly and effectively to changing customer demand. However, there is confusion between these two concepts in the academic and professional literature, with both terms being used to refer to the same idea. Our literature review aims to draw the boundaries between flexibility and agility by analyzing the evolution of the two concepts and detailing their respective drivers and elements, in order to bring more clarity to the nature of the relationship between flexibility and agility.

An examination of the importance of big data analytics in supply chain agility development

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the influence of big data analytics (BDA) personnel expertise capabilities in the development of supply chain (SC) agility. Based on extant literature, the study explores the role of BDA technical knowledge, BDA technology management knowledge, BDA business knowledge and BDA relational knowledge in SC agility development. Furthermore, the author also explores the inter-relationships among these four BDA personnel expertise capabilities.Design/methodology/approachAn expert team consisting of IT practitioners (with a minimum experience of five years) were chosen to comment and modify the established scale items of the constructs used in the study. Subsequently, the measures were further pre-tested with 61 students specializing in computer science and information technology. The final survey was mailed to 651 IT professionals with a minimum experience of five years or more in an allied field. Repeated follow-ups and reminders resulted in 176 completed responses. The responses were analysed using partial least squares in SmartPLS 2.0.M3.FindingsFindings suggested that BDA technology management knowledge, BDA business knowledge and BDA relational knowledge are prominent enablers of SC agility. Furthermore, BDA technology management knowledge is an essential precursor of BDA technical knowledge and BDA business knowledge.Originality/valueThe study is the foremost in addressing the importance of BDA personnel expertise capabilities in the development of SC agility. Furthermore, it is also the foremost in exploring the inter-relationships among the BDA personnel expertise capabilities.

Information technology capability, knowledge management capability, and organizational agility: The role of environmental factors

AbstractThis study precisely investigates the relationship of information technology (IT) and knowledge management (KM) capabilities with organizational agility along with the moderating influence of external environmental actors on this linkage. A matched-pair field survey was conducted and pretested structured questionnaires were administered to accumulate primary responses from 300 business and IT personnel working in various Indian financial groups. The research findings encompass first, IT and KM capabilities are enablers of organizational agility, while KM capability is more effective on agility. Second, a more diverse and less hostile environment is required for IT and KM capabilities to have more positive influence on agility, yet the moderating effects of environmental factors are found to be more on IT–agility linkage than on KM–agility relationship. These inferences provide several implications for the business and IT executives to concentrate on leveraging both IT and KM capabilities for generating augmented organizational agility.

A hybrid approach to achieve organizational agility

PurposeIn today’s intense global competition, agility is advocated as a fundamental characteristic for business survival and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical methodology to achieve and enhance organizational agility based on strategic objectives.Design/methodology/approachIn the first step, a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the organization being studied are recognized and classified under the perspectives of balanced scorecard (BSC). Critical success factors are then identified by ranking the KPIs according to their importance in achieving organizational strategic objectives using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In the second step, three houses of quality (HOQs) are constructed sequentially to identify and rank the main agile attributes, agile enablers, and improvement paths. In addition, in order to translate linguistics judgments of practitioners into numerical values in building HOQs, fuzzy logic is employed.FindingsThe capability of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by applying it to a case of a multi-national food company in Iran. Through the application, the company could find the most suitable improvement paths to improve its organizational agility.Research limitations/implicationsA limited number of KPIs were chosen due to computational and visual constraints related to HOQs. Another limitation, similar to other agility studies, which facilitate decision making among agility metrics, was that the metrics were more industry-specific and less inclusive.Practical implicationsA strong practical advantage for the application of the methodology over directly choosing agility metrics without linking them is that through the methodology, the right metrics were selected that match organization’s core values and marketing objectives. While metrics may ostensibly seem unrelated or inappropriate, they actually contributed to the right areas where there were gaps between the current and desired level of agility. It would otherwise be impossible to choose the right metrics without a structured methodology.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a novel methodology for achieving organizational agility. By utilizing and linking several tools such as BSC, fuzzy TOPSIS, and quality function deployment (QFD), the proposed approach enables organizations to identify the most appropriate agile attributes, agile enablers, and subsequently agile improvement paths.

Modelling of Prime Agile Enablers: People, Virtual Integration and Information Technology

Agile manufacturing has successfully established its importance in dealing with dynamic demand of customer and market. A survey based study has been conducted with an aim to identify main predictors of agile manufacturing enablers and to develop a model for agile manufacturing enablers. The framed hypotheses for the four sections of agility enablers were tested by ANOVA. Four sections of enabler were organization’s people, organization’s virtual integration & collaboration, organization’s information technology & communication, and organization’s tools & technology. Principal component analysis was applied to identify main components of agile enablers. Stepwise linear regression analysis was used to generate model for agile manufacturing enablers. Analytical hierarchy process has been used to rank the variables of components pictured in linear regression model. Afterward, a complete regression model has been prepared with the help of priority vectors generated by AHP. The variables information system interface with customers, employee’s empowerment, sharing of concepts and CAD/CAM found as the most important agile enablers. Therefore, these agile enables need high attention to make an organization agile. The status of agile enablers in Indian manufacturing industries has been calculated and it is found that the level of agile enablers in Indian manufacturing industries is quite low.

Implementation performance of agile manufacturing: a graph theoretic approach

The primary objective of this paper is to quantify, evaluate and compare the implementation performance of agile manufacturing program using graph theoretic approach. Eleven agile manufacturing enablers with their key performance indicators were identified and classified into three significant categories. The proposed model captures the performance and interdependencies of significant categories, agile manufacturing enablers and their key performance indicators to quantify the agile manufacturing implementation performance level. In order to demonstrate the utility of the proposed approach, it was applied to an Indian automobile manufacturing company. The performances along the timeline were evaluated and compared with different scenarios to identify performance gap and set the future targets. Although it was observed a significant growth in agile manufacturing implementation performance level in the case company over six quarters, but there was performance gap that needs to be reduced.

An empirical investigation of agility factors in select Indian manufacturing industries

In the era of dynamic and customised demand, the organisations cannot be rigid. Rigidity can be reduced by adopting agile manufacturing paradigm. The objective of this study was to identify chief predictors of agile manufacturing and to distinguish agile developers and enablers. The survey-based study has been conducted to identify and pinpoint factors of agility to help managers to identify the areas to be focused. A hypothetical agile manufacturing framework has been proposed. The study indicates that nine hypothesised factors have statistically significant relationship with agility. Linear regression model has been developed to recognise agile manufacturing predictors. Linear regression model equation of agile manufacturing has been compared and tested with the mean value of agility. The results obtained from linear regression model and survey was found to be in close proximity. Further using principal component analysis, proposed empirical framework has been restructured as per empirical results of study.

Modelling the Enablers of Agile Performance in Healthcare Organization: A TISM Approach

This study attempts to model the enablers of agility of healthcare organizations and interprets the interrelationship among them using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM). Its contribution to the knowledge base is twofold. First, it provides a hierarchical structure portraying the driving enablers and the dependent enablers. Second, it ranks the enablers based on their influence on organization agility. To accomplish the above objectives, ten enablers of organization agility have been identified through an extensive literature review followed by an expert interview to comprehend the interactions and transitivity between the enablers and finally an analysis of the interrelationship using TISM. The results suggest that organizational structure is the most crucial enabler of agile performance in healthcare organization. Apart from that, a motivated and flexible workforce, cooperation between management and employees, availability of training and implementation of employee and patient’s suggestion play a significant role in healthcare organization agility. Eventually, limitations and future research avenues have been outlined to extend the current study.

Dominance of agility in tourism value chains: evidence from India

PurposeTourism supply chains (SCs) are recently gaining importance and there is a dire need for empirical testing and theory development in allied areas. The current investigation aims to explore the importance of management learning, relationship development, shared vision, inter-firm integration and technology perception as essential management capabilities required for the development of dynamic capability of tourism SC agility. Furthermore, the study explores the agile influence on competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approachThe study collected perceptual responses from 233 active participants and respondents in the tourism sector. The collected data were analyzed for the validity of the proposed relationships through partial least squares.FindingsFindings suggest relationship development, shared vision, inter-firm integration and technology perception as significant enablers. Furthermore, tourism SC agility was found to enhance competitive advantage.Originality/valueThe study further advances theory development and empirical testing through extending the concept of agility to tourism SCs and examining its enablers. Furthermore, the study developed measured for the utilized enablers of tourism SC agility through appropriate development in tourism contexts.

Predicting the relationships between virtual enterprises and agility in supply chains

Develop an aggregated research schema for VE, ASC, and SC collaboration.Propose a conceptual model for the relationship between VE and ASC.Explore drivers and enablers of agility.Provide rich empirical evidence on impact of VE on ASC.Present theoretical insights and practical implications for managers. In the recent advanced information communications and technology (ICT) era, collaborating virtually and temporarily in supply chains (SCs) to receive mutual benefits such as agility while sharing resources and information becomes an important strategy for enterprises that seek to increase their competitiveness and to optimise their processes and resource usage. As a dynamic and temporary form of alliance from the resource perspective, virtual enterprises (VEs) may contribute network resource heterogeneity and sustain competitive advantage. In addition, agility is suggested as a rare, valuable, network resource that is difficult to imitate and that cannot easily be substituted by other attributes.Although many researchers have investigated VEs and their agility, the research pays less attention to the relationship between VEs and agility in complex SC situations. This paper therefore investigates the relationship between VE and agility in SCs (ASCs) and explores drivers and enablers of agility and outcomes. To clarify the relationships between factors a structural equation model (SEM) is adopted to examine the model fit according to the measurement variables and supporting hypotheses. The results provide rich empirical evidence of the beneficial impact of VEs on ASCs, and theoretical and managerial insights that can be used to strengthen the drivers, enablers and capabilities to enhance the effectiveness of VE collaboration in ASCs in a global and dynamic context. Also, the analysis results can aid a decision maker which ones of the factors are the important ones that he or she should devote more resources and efforts on.

An argument for infrastructure system stewardship: A new zealand transportation case study in benefit management

© 2017 WIT Press. Benefits are intrinsic to infrastructure and the public sector, yet these remain a problem for many infrastructure sectors (including transportation), organizations and countries. Much of the focus upon benefit management targets project delivery; by contrast, this study considers system-level benefit management using a transportation case study from New Zealand. In so doing, it investigates why the matter of benefits might be so problematic, and in what way this might affect the integration of projects into the extant system. The research shows system-level coordination and integration are being lost within the 'tactical strategy' of programmes and initiatives. In turn, this is creating a 'red queen'-like busyness without a real understanding of whether anything has been achieved relative to the intended or necessary outcomes being sought. System stewardship has therefore been advanced as an appropriate response to systemlevel complexity and a potential enabler of strategic agility and adaptive capacity.

Determination of relative importance of agility enablers for agile manufacturing companies by analytical hierarchy process

It is essential for any manufacturing organisation endeavouring to become agile to identify the relative importance of different agility enablers that contribute the most to agility of an organisation. So in this paper an attempt has been made to identify the agility enablers and the criteria of agile manufacturing from literature review and subsequently ranked the agility enablers after comparing their importance with each agile criterion by analytical hierarchy process (AHP) tool. Sensitivity analysis is performed on the results to check robustness of the ranking while future research opportunities in this research are also identified at the end. The results showed that the management response agility and the supply chain agility received first and second position as the most important enablers while the work force agility is the least important when it comes to make an organisation agile in nature.