Modern Manufacturing Paradigms - A Comparison

Companies aim to increase their prof- its by continuously striving to offer their customers what they want, when they want and where they want it. This makes it imperative for them to pro- vide customized products at mass production prices while reducing the design-to-market times and lead times. There are many techniques available in the research literature today that purport to help com- panies achieve these often-times contradicting and complex goals. Some of these techniques like lean principles have gained widespread popularity partly fueled by the success story of companies that pio- neered them, Toyota for one. However, others like mass customization and agile manufacturing have not yet taken off as well as they should have been. The reasons for this laggard response might be partly due to the lack of understanding of the underlying funda- mentals and partly due to the inability to keep up pro- lific rate at which newer concepts are being brought to fruition. This work aims to compare these techniques and provide practitioners with an understanding of these techniques thus enabling them to select one or a combination of many of these approaches best suited to their needs.