8 H. Sharix, Z. Zhang/Int. J.
Production Economics 62 (1999) 7}22
extended to other aspects of scale and scope of trial competition. These are known to be: the
business economy in the past two decades. These emergence of intense international competition; the
aspects include market, competition, customer re- creation of fragmented markets populated by de-
quirements, social factors, etc., that have been sub- manding, sophisticated customers; and diverse
ject to relentless and overwhelming changes. Such change in transforming technology. They believe
changes, which had already resulted in frequent that the role of new products goes well beyond
evolution of business systems and the creation of fascination it used to evoke, and has become a focal
new manufacturing and management philosophies, point of industrial competition. Another outstand-
are shown to be occurring faster and more unex- ing e!ort that was conducted by a group from
pectedly in recent years than ever. The perceived Iacocca Institute in USA resulted in a report in
radical trend of change has made ground for some 1991 [6]. The report that soon became a focal point
new suggestions about the emergence of a new of manufacturing system studies, stated that a new
business era beyond the traditional systems such as competitive environment is emerging which is act-
mass production or even lean production. ing as a driving force for change in manufacturing.
Competition basis, which used to be the prod- It argues that the new foundations of the competi-
uct's price, has moved to quality, delivery time, and tion criteria are: continuous change, rapid
"nally customer choice or in a more exact way, response, quality improvement, and social respons-
customer satisfaction. The prevailing strategy of ibility. The research that was pursued under Agility
economy of scales has been challenged by the new Forum in Bethelham University, then introduced
vision of economy of scope. Mass production drivers of manufacturing business towards the new
systems are being seriously questioned for their form of competition, and called this new concept
viability in challenging the changing nature of the agile manufacturing. These drivers are competition,
business environment. The new methods that have fragmentation of mass market, cooperative produc-
been used to cure the problems in productivity of tion relationship, evolving customer expectations,
traditional systems, such as #exible manufacturing and increasing social pressures.
and lean manufacturing and all techniques and These works have been supported by a number
tools associated to them, are found insu$cient in of studies that addressed the subject of change and
the way they have been managed and utilised. the methods to cope with chaos and uncertainty.
From late 1980s into 1990s, and following Davis [7] has stressed that the biggest problem for
widespread economic and political changes over executive today is change } responding to external
the world, a great amount of e!orts have been and managing internal changes. Authors such as
directed to understand the roots and causes of the Clemson [8], Graves [9] and Hall [10] have talked
new orders in the world business. USA "rst led the about the desirability and di$culty of handling
movement as they felt a substantial loss in the changes. Drucker [11] has outlined that dramatic
world share of business, especially in manufactur- advances in technology has also changed the way
ing industry where they were confronted by new people work, and made modern types of enterprise
rivals from Asia and Europe. It then became the possible. Hayen [3] has seen the challenge of
concern of Europe as well, as they did not see change to emerge due to technological turbulence,
themselves "t into the new order of business, espe- the all-pervasive nature of microelectronics, the
cially considering the vast foreseen change over the trend towards globalisation, and changes in com-
continent. petitive relationships. Souder and Moenart [12]
Academic groups and funded research institutes have identi"ed four sources of uncertainty which
world wide have carried out research programmes are: consumer, competitor, technology, and re-
in order to understand and diagnose the roots, sources. Bessant et al. [13] have indicated that
causes and e!ects of the new business circumstances. alongside other changes, there have been the devel-
Clark and Fujimoto [5] conducted a "ve year opment in manufacturing methods that in a total
study of product development process world wide combination have formed a mesh of competi-
and reported new forces that drive the new indus- tive threats and opportunities for manufacturing
