Agility

Success in globally competitive markets demands agility—a capacity for rapid change and flexibility. E-business requires and enables more rapid, flexible, and customized responses. Businesses face ever-shorter cycles for the introduction of new/improved products and services, as well as for faster and more flexible responses to customers. Major improvements in response times often require simplification of work units and processes or the ability for rapid changeover from one process to another. Cross-trained and empowered employees are vital assets in such a demanding environment.

A major success factor in meeting competitive challenges is the design-to-introduction (product or service initiation) or innovation cycle time. To meet the demands of rapidly changing global markets, organizations need to carry out stage-to-stage integration (such as concurrent engineering) of activities from research or concept to commercialization.

All aspects of time performance now are more critical, and cycle time has become a key process measure. Other important benefits can be derived from this focus on time; time improvements often drive simultaneous improvements in organization, quality, cost, and productivity.