企業因應競爭環境變動之下的敏捷策略應用之案例分析 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學企業管理學系碩士班碩士論文. 企業因應競爭環境變動之下的敏捷策略應用政治. 立. 之案例分析. 大. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. A Case Study on Agile Strategy used by Enterprises in. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Response to the Competitive Environment. Ch. engchi. 指導教授：管康彥研究生：謝旻諺. i n U. v. 博士撰. 中華民國一○三年八月.

(2) 致謝辭很慶幸自己兩年前進入政大企研所，政大擁有台灣最好的商學院、最優秀的師資、以及一群相互鼓勵又良性競爭的同學們。特別是在寫論文的「大爆炸」階段時，這所有的一切更為重要。這份論文得以完成，首先要感謝的是我的指導老師，管康彥教授所給予的悉心指導。從一開始不知道要做什麼題目時，老師就在兩個小時內發揮了獨特的導引能力，帶著我抽絲剝繭找出我實際上有興趣且能夠發揮的方向。老師從來就不希望學生只尋求一個正確答案，而是整件事情的思考模式。因此往往在我卡關之處，老師會帶著我思考，走出我的盲點；也常常在我. 政治大. 認為做得很順手的地方，點出我思考所不周全之處，然後帶著我更深入的探討相. 立. 關的議題。. ‧ 國. 學. 另外，感謝一路上一起奮鬥的師兄弟們，Alex、Tom、和鄭瑜，有了這群夥. ‧. 伴互相鼓勵和支持的力量，分享彼此研究中的資訊和酸甜苦辣，讓整個研究和撰. sit. y. Nat. 寫論文的過程變得相對有趣許多。. al. er. io. 最後，要非常感謝我的父母，謝謝你們過去以來對我的支持與包容。一路上. v. n. 從一個父母師長都頭大的學生，到今天繳交這份論文，正式成為台灣最好的商學. Ch. engchi. i n U. 院認證的 MBA。希望這些年累積的成果，逐漸能夠讓你們看到你們辛苦拉拔我的果實。在邁向人生下一個階段的同時，我已經更清楚知道自己的責任和義務在哪裡，不再讓你們這麼掛心於我的輕浮和不成熟。爸媽，謝謝你們！. 2.

(3) 摘要. 面對日趨活躍的跨領域互動潮流與日益縮短的產品生命週期及市場反應時間等三項因素，全球產業普遍面臨越來越嚴峻的競爭環境，企業因應變化和不確定性的挑戰越來越大。在這種情況下，企業為了能夠持續存活及維繫本身的競生優勢，他們必須要用一種更為敏捷的方式來回應環境中的變化和不確定性。敏捷策略代表的就是一種將「從市場上取得的訊息回饋並融入到公司的價值鏈內」的策略，它的目的是讓企業能夠更迅速調整自身的資源來回應市場的狀況。儘管目. 政治大個如同「精實生產」一樣具體而明確的說法。本研究建立於個案研究的基礎之上，立前對敏捷策略有許多不同的看法，但實際上「敏捷」所代表的意義仍然找不到一. ‧. ‧ 國. 式及作法。. 學. 來找出企業在面對不同的競爭條件以及產業條件之下所會採用的敏捷策略的模. 研究發現，即便是被認為敏捷範例的企業，它們仍然不一定全方位的採行敏. y. Nat. sit. 捷策略。公司根據企業在管理上的複雜度，選擇專注於商業環境中的特定面向來. n. al. er. io. 導入敏捷作為。本研究發現，所有個案公司在四個敏捷面向中至少採行其中兩個. i n U. v. 面向。首先，內部組織和文化面向皆調整為允許並提升靈活性和適應性。接著，. Ch. engchi. 公司透過調整經營和生產面向來相增加企業的靈活性和適應性。除了調整內部的運作之外，這些公司會依據公司的核心優勢或是在其他面向管理的複雜度來決定應該處理哪一個外部運作面向。本研究發現當企業面臨複雜的供應網絡時，他們會嘗試將資源分配來跟合作夥伴建立敏捷關係;另外，只有企業只有在必須直接及快速面對並回應快速變化的客戶或市場的需求時，他們才會將資源分配以便能夠敏捷地將客戶的聲音和市場的訊息融入產品或服務。. 3.

(4) Abstract As global business environment is experiencing much fiercer competitions from the increased interactions across country and industry boundaries, shorter product life cycle, shorter respond time, more variation and uncertainties are becoming major challenges to corporations nowadays. The increased competition forces companies to react to changes and uncertainties in an agile way, in terms of connecting resources internally and externally, in order to survive and to sustain their competitive advantages. Agility represents a strategy for companies to integrate information on the market into their value chain, making it easier and faster for the companies to leverage their resources and capabilities to respond to market situations in a quick manner. Despite the evolvement of different agility viewpoints, the concept of agility has yet to be solidly defines as it has been done on such concepts as lean manufacturing. On the basis of a multiple case study, this paper aims to identify the ways companies could adapt the agility strategy under different competitive circumstances based on the companies’ and their corresponding industries’ situation.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. The study finds that even companies recognized as agile examples are not performing all-around comprehensive across all aspects of agility. Companies choose to concentrate on specific agility dimensions based on the companies’ actual complications managing the business environment. However, commonalities exist when all case companies are found to perform practice agilely in two of the four dimensions. The internal organization and culture dimension is adjusted to allow. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. i n U. v. flexibility and adaptability. Furthermore, the companies increase the companies’ versatility and adjustability by adjusting the operations and manufacturing dimension. On top of the adjusted internal operation, the companies should then decide to focus on the external environment that is complicated to manage or is fatally related to the companies’ core competencies. It is found only companies with complicated supply network would attempt to allocate resources into establishing agile relationship with. engchi. their partners; and only companies with direct pressure to react to fast changing customer or market demand would allocate resources into agilely adapting customers’ voices and/or market information into their products or services.. 4.

(5) Table of Contents 摘要................................................................................................................................ 3 Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables.................................................................................................................. 7 List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Background and Motivation ............................................................................ 9 1.2 Problem Description, Research Purpose, and Research Questions ............... 12 1.3 Research Methodology .................................................................................. 13 1.3.1 Case Study .......................................................................................... 13 1.3.2 Case Selection ..................................................................................... 14 1.3.3 Research Procedure ............................................................................. 17 Chapter 2 Literature Reviews ...................................................................................... 18 2.1 Concepts of Enterprise Agility .................................................................... 18 2.2 Business Processes of Enterprise Agility .................................................... 22. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 2.3 Frameworks and Attributes of Enterprise Agility .......................................... 24 2.3.1 Frameworks......................................................................................... 24 2.3.2 Attributes ............................................................................................. 26. ‧. 2.5 Models of Enterprise Agility.......................................................................... 29 2.5.1 Review of Agility Models ................................................................... 29 2.5.2 Proposed Agility Model ...................................................................... 30 Chapter 3 Case Overview ............................................................................................ 32 3.1 Adam Opel AG (Opel) ................................................................................... 32 3.1.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 32. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. n. v i n 3.1.2 History and Significant C h DevelopmentsU............................................... 34 h i and Framework .................... 36 n g cStrategy 3.1.3 Agile Conducts UndereAgility. 3.2 Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M)................................. 39 3.2.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 39 3.2.2 History and Significant Developments ............................................... 40 3.2.3 Agile Conducts Under Agility Strategy and Framework .................... 41 3.3 Deere and Company (John Deere) ................................................................. 43 3.3.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 43 3.3.2 History and Significant Developments ............................................... 44 3.3.3 Agile Conducts Under Agility Strategy and Framework .................... 45 3.4 Airbus SAS (Airbus) ...................................................................................... 46 3.4.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 46 3.4.2 History and Significant Developments ............................................... 47 3.4.3 Agile Conducts Under Agility Strategy and Framework .................... 48 5.

(6) 3.5 Comparative Representation of Agile Practices in Case Companies............. 50 Chapter 4 Case Analysis .............................................................................................. 54 4.1 Opel AG ......................................................................................................... 54 4.2 3M (Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company) ................................... 56 4.3 Deere & Company (John Deere).................................................................... 59 4.4 Airbus ............................................................................................................. 61 4.5 Comparative Analysis .................................................................................... 62 Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusion ......................................................................... 64 5.1 Summary of the Research .............................................................................. 64 5.2 Discussion of Research Findings ................................................................... 65 5.2.1 Opel AG .............................................................................................. 65 5.2.2 3M ....................................................................................................... 66 5.2.3 Deere and Company............................................................................ 67 5.2.4 Airbus .................................................................................................. 68 5.2.5 Commonalities Co-exist in the Four Companies ................................ 69 5.3 Conclusion and Implications.......................................................................... 70 5.4 Contributions of the Study ............................................................................. 71 5.5 Limitations to the Study ................................................................................. 72. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. 5.6 Recommendations for Future Researches ...................................................... 73 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 74. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 6. i n U. v.

(7) List of Tables Table 1: Features of Agility proposed by Yusuf (1999) Table 2: Agility Attributes in each of the Operational Aspects. 27 28. Table 3: Agility Practices of the Four Case Companies Table 4: Agility Practices of Opel AG Table 5: Agility Practices of 3M Table 6: Agility Practices of Deere & Company Table 7: Agility Practices of Airbus. 51 54 56 59 61. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 7. i n U. v.

(8) List of Figures Figure 1: Conceptual Research Procedure Figure 2: Strategic Hierarchies. 17 21. Figure 3: Agile Enterprise Framework Proposed by Lin et al. (2005) Figure 4: Agile Enterprise Framework Proposed by Sharifi and Zhang (1999) Figure 5: Conceptualized Agility Model. 25 25 31. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 8. i n U. v.

(9) Chapter 1 Introduction. With the volatility and versatility of global business competition environment leveling up, enterprises are obligated to respond correctly in uncertainty and unpredictability. Enterprises nowadays operate in an extremely competitive environment of a global context. The increased rate of innovation and technological developments, fragmentation of markets, and elevated customer expectations toward customized products have led to the especially turbulent and rapid changes in the. 政治大 leading to fiercer competitive 立 pressure to the industries, corporations are required to business environment.. As globalization and regional economic partnership are. ‧ 國. 學. adapt to much more volatility, risks, market variations, and so on. Many different solutions have been proposed for businesses to survive in this new competitive. ‧. environment, such as networking, modular organizations, virtual enterprise. Among. sit. y. Nat. them, adaptive, flexible, and agile are the most prevailing topics under discussion.. n. al. er. io. Generally speaking, all of the concepts mentioned aimed at increasing and improving. v Agility is the proposed i n. the companies’ ability to adjust and respond to changes.. Ch. engchi U. concept to describe a new approach in enterprise management necessary to achieve. success in a modern dynamically changing market, which is generally accepted as having considered all three criteria mentioned above. (Shrerhiy et al., 2007; Sharifi and Zhang, 2001; Yusuf et al., 2002). 1.1 Background and Motivation. It is now clear that the importance of achieving high business agility has come to the notice of many organizations worldwide. According to an IBM study in 2011 on business agility, strong correlation was reported between agility and success. 9.

(10) Furthermore, a McKinsey survey in 2006 concluded a similar result when it was found that more than 90% of the surveyed executives consider agility as influential to business performance. Moreover, the Boston Consulting Group report indicated that agility is a kind of competitive advantage that would assist enterprises in sustaining their performances.. All of the industrial reports above came to the same conclusion. that nowadays, enterprise agility is the entry point not only for businesses to survive in the competitive environment, but for all businesses that are building up and sustaining their competitive advantages. (Axelsson and Blomqvist, 2012; IBM, 2011;. 政治大 Agility has been considered 立 to be the winning strategy for becoming a global. Boston Consulting Group, 2011; Microsoft, 2009; McKinsey, 2006). ‧ 國. 學. leader in an increasingly competitive market of quickly changing customer requirements. As businesses competition leveling up in such an unpredictable and. ‧. uncertain global context nowadays, it is becoming clearer than never before that. sit. y. Nat. businesses incapable of responding to changing environment opportunity of pressure,. al. n. even liquidation.. er. io. such as Kodak and Facit AB, are being pushed into filing for bankruptcy protection or. i n U. v. It is, therefore, safe to conclude that agility is becoming the. Ch. engchi. baseline for leading enterprises to continuing and sustaining their leadership in the industries. (Tseng and Lin, 2011; Bloomberg, 2012) Prior to 1990, most of the research on how organizations respond to changing environment focused on “adaptability”, which is how the organization’s form, structure, and degree of formalization influenced the ability to adapt. Afterwards, starting at the 80s, researchers turned their attention to the concept of “flexibility”, focusing on an organization’s capacity to adjust its internal structures and processes in response to changes in the environment.. However, most of the discussions on. flexible organization are mainly on the ability to adapt and to respond to changes. 10.

(11) As global economic integration brings corporations to a more dynamic and fast-changing competition environment, “agility” emerged in the 90s as a new idea to cope with this complex environment.. Researches argue that an agile enterprise is an. enterprise whose processes are able to respond effectively to unanticipated change. The problem of creating agile business processes, however, is enhanced by the lack of a comprehensive method.. Hence, agility could be considered as the new paradigm. that enables the enterprise to thrive on unanticipated change. (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Reed and Blunsdon, 1998; Volberda, 1996; De Toni, 1998; Meade, 1997). 政治大 the year of 2011 marks the 立reminder of the vulnerability of global supply chains. According to FM Global, a globally renowned loss prevention service provider,. ‧ 國. 學. Coming only months after the automakers forced to shut down production lines and facilities for critical components during Japan earthquake and tsunami, Thailand flood. ‧. caused leading automakers to not only halt their production facilities, but to slow These natural. sit. y. Nat. production rate down in several countries on their supply chain.. n. al. er. io. disasters provide case studies into the fragility of modern global supply chains. This. i n U. v. catastrophe has become the basis for illustrating how a localized event can affect the. Ch. engchi. supply chains of thousands of companies and have consequences that reverberate across the global economy. (FM Global, 2012) As indicated by Gartner’s 2013 supply chain analysis report, companies rated as having top supply chains differentiates themselves as being leaders in the innovation of next generation agile supply chains in one way or the other. As internationalized businesses release more low-value-added functional operations abroad than never before, the distance and complexity of their supply chains is increasing at the same time.. While the more complexity businesses have to handle, more considerations. would have to be invested in managing the cooperative relationships with the partners 11.

(12) to better handle changes and uncertainties, knowing what resources to link and how to link them in times of need. (Gartner, 2013; Ross, 2004) Even though it is widely recognized that the complexity of business environment has increased significantly, and that it is proposed that agility is the winning strategy in the emerging competitive environment, the majority of current studies focuses on the definition and the sorting of agility indices and categories.. The connection. between the theoretical agility and the agility practiced in real-life situation, however, has not yet been widely studied, thus triggering the author’s interest in knowing and. 政治大 future entrants, as it has been 立done on most of the theories such as lean management.. showing how in-situ agility practices could be generally categorized for the use of. ‧ 國. 學. 1.2 Problem Description, Research Purpose, and Research Questions. ‧ sit. y. Nat. Problem Description:. n. al. er. io. This research is primarily concerned with the problem to establish the generic. i n U. v. connection of how enterprises are utilizing the agile strategy in response to the. Ch. engchi. volatility and versatility of business competitive environment, and to find out the situation in which such connection exists. Research Purpose: The purpose of this research is to review the agile techniques in practice by leading agile enterprises to respond to uncertainty, categorizing the agility practices with agility models, and marking the commonalities that leading agile enterprises are adapting.. 12.

(13) Research Questions: Two research questions are generated from the problem and the purpose defined for this research.. First of all, how are leading companies utilizing the concepts. agility under agility models?. By actually analyzes companies’ practices and. presenting in a categorized way, it should a much clearer way to allow understanding of how agility work in real-life business environment. Furthermore, the second question arises is “what are the commonalities followers from most types of industries could refer to?”. It has been suggested that business. 政治大. theories are at no use if not connected and actually used in the business context.. 立. Thus, by inferring the research findings into suggestion to future entrants of the agility. ‧ 國. 學. enterprise, it should be able to provide the potential entrants with guidelines on their transformation.. ‧ y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. 1.3 Research Methodology. i n U. v. This section presents the author’s proposed method to proceed with this research.. Ch. engchi. This section begins with the description of the case study method of research. It is followed by the description of case selection used in this study. This section will then be concluded by the graphic representation of the author’s conceptual research procedure.. 1.3.1 Case Study. According to the Harvard Business School (HBS), case studies could stimulate a realistic managerial situation with more intensity into the same amount of study.. It. is suggested by researchers that case study research focuses on an objective 13.

(14) understanding of the dynamics of a real process, evaluating it in its natural context. The case study method has been utilized in paramount amount in recent years because case study allows researchers to clarify and to solidify the concept under examination during the research topic’s early stages, when consolidated theoretical agreement is yet to be set among researchers in the topic.. Although case studies work best. guiding researchers through unfamiliar situations in the early stages of a theory, case studies are also ideal in researches that are supporting, verifying, or broadening the current theory or answering questions. (Vazquez-Bustelo, 2006; Yin, 1989; Eisenhardt,. 政治大 With the proposed research 立 questions in mind and considering the possibilities of. 1989). ‧ 國. 學. different research methods, it is proposed that the case-study method is the most suitable way to allow the author in researching and addressing the utilization of agile. ‧. principles and strategies in the leading corporations.. Secondary data from past. sit. y. Nat. researches will be utilized and re-examined to see what these companies are doing. n. al. er. io. under the newly proposed model, and find the reasons why and how these companies are adopting their agile behaviors.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 1.3.2 Case Selection. Four companies are chosen as the targets for analysis in this research, which are Opel (Adam Opel AG), 3M (Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company), John Deere (Deere & Company), and Airbus (Airbus Group). The chosen companies have proven themselves through their historical legacy in changing and adapting the change in either the front end (market, demand, etc.) or the back end (manufacturing technology, supply chain, etc.) or both. Such common characteristics exist among the companies as been recognized as successful international corporations and proven 14.

(15) agility behavior in the history of the companies. Being successful in international operation is critical because complexity, uncertainty, and fluctuation increase when a company operates internationally. In the history of Opel, the company has been able to lead its industry by manufacturing advancement with the adaption of the stream line manufacturing technique during times of heavy and uniformed demand.. Furthermore, Opel. demonstrated its ability in turning around from being almost totally destructed infrastructurally and politically to becoming a market leader again after the Second. 政治大 armed with competencies to 立accurately respond to the changes in the environment and. World War. Thus, it could be concluded from Opel’s history that the company is. ‧ 國. 學. in the market demand in a timely manner, making the company a perfect target for analysis under the agility topic.. Furthermore, Opel’s competitive environment if. ‧. filled with fluctuation in both technological advancement and customers’ tastes,. sit. y. Nat. making the company required to continuously changing the designs and product. n. al. er. io. lineups from time to time.. i n U. v. At the same time, 3M is chosen because it is generally accepted as agile in. Ch. engchi. researching and developing products with wide-range of expertise and competencies. Moreover, 3M receives more than 58% of its revenue from 196 countries reflects the company’s complex competitive environment. The company’s ability to introduce appropriate product portfolio globally according to different market characteristics and changes motivates the researchers to study the company’s agility strategy and behavior.. Furthermore, 3M’s continuously reorganization of its internal business. units is the key for the company to introduce products accurately according to the market demand.. Hence, with 3M’s ability to innovating and introducing products. into fill demand gaps on the market, the company distinguishes itself as a perfect case 15.

(16) study to be researched under agility, to understand how the company works under the agility context. Furthermore, Deere & Company (John Deere) is taken as a target for analysis in this research because of the company’s ability to expand its product portfolio from the very core competency to adjust and to evolve along with the market. Begins as a tractor manufacturer, the company is currently among the biggest manufacturers in The company’s ability to leverage its core expertise to. tools and machineries.. penetrate into different industries triggers the author’s interest into researching the Furthermore, while 政治大 John Deere’s product frameworks 立 are pretty fixed, the company compensates by company’s practices that allows the company’s achievements.. ‧ 國. 學. designing its manufacturing processes specifically allowing details of the products to be specified by its customers. Moreover, even though the customer demands of John. ‧. Deere do not change frequently, the company faces severe market pressure in the. y. The company has been successful in. sit. Nat. variation in demand across markets.. n. al. er. io. introducing the correct product portfolios into all the markets that it entered, making. i n U. v. John Deere a good target worth researching its agility practices.. Ch. engchi. Lastly, Airbus is admitted into this research because of its legendary competition with the United States based Boeing. Established in 1972, 14 years lagged behind Boeing, Airbus quickly turned the situation around in terms of market share in aircraft sales. Unlike Boeing that is subsidized sole by the US government, Airbus’s subsidy comes from the European Union, which means Airbus carries certain social responsibility to operate and to balance the economic condition in the EU. Thus, the cooperation, both internally and externally, relationship between Airbus and its supply chain becomes much more complicated than that of Boeing. While the relationship within a company’s supply chain is one of agility’s critical aspects, Airbus’ distinctive 16.

(17) expertise in supply chain motivates the author in researching and further understands the subject matter. Each of the four chosen companies distinguishes itself in some aspects that worth further researching under agility frameworks.. By analyzing the four company’s. agility practices, it may provide future companies transforming into agility with hints and inspirations.. 1.3.3 Research Procedure. 政治大 This thesis follows the proposed procedure as described below. 立. It begins with. delivering the basic concept of enterprise agility (business agility), followed by formal. ‧ 國. 學. literature review of agile concept defined academically to establish the framework of. ‧. agility that is used to breakdown and analyzes the targeted enterprises’ agile practices.. y. sit. Graphic representation of the research procedure is shown below.. io. n. al. er. analyzing process.. Nat. Finally, discussion and conclusion is made on the commonalities found in the. Purpose Definition. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Generation of Conceptual Model Literature Review. Case Analysis. Case Discussion. Conslusion. Figure 1: Conceptual Research Procedure 17.

(18) Chapter 2 Literature Reviews. This chapter presents the review of academic articles on the topic of agility. The introduction of agility begins with introducing the concepts and the evolution of agility, which is followed by the more detailed description of agility attributes. The business processes and frameworks of agility are then presented. This section is concluded by the presentation of agility models and the proposed model to be used in this research.. 學. ‧ 國. 2.1. 政治大 Concepts of Enterprise Agility 立 As agility still a newly emerged concept proposed only in the 1990s, and became. ‧. popular studied at around 2008, the universal definition of agility is yet to be set.. sit. y. Nat. The creator of agility, the Iacocca Institute of Lehigh University, defined agile as “A. io. er. manufacturing system with capabilities (hard and soft technologies, human resources, educated management, and information) to meet the rapidly changing needs of the. al. n. v i n marketplace (speed, flexibility, C customers, competitors, h e n g c h i U suppliers, infrastructure, and responsiveness)”. Other researchers agreed that agility is the ability of surviving and. prospering in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets, driven by customer-defined products and services.. Finally, some researchers recognized agility as “a rapid and. proactive adaptation of enterprise elements to unexpected and unpredicted changes”. In the business context, agility is known as “the ability of an enterprise to operate profitably in a rapidly changing and continuously fragmenting global market environment by producing high-quality, high-performance, and customer-configured goods and/or services”. Thus, it could be concluded that agility is a company’s 18.

(19) capabilities to manipulate and to link its resources quickly in respond to the changes and uncertainties on the market and the competitive environment.. (Yusuf et al., 1999;. Gunasekaran, 1999; Kidd, 1994, Tsourveloudis and Valavanis, 2002) The concept of agility has been utilized in the software and IT industries for years.. However, it is a newly emerging concept in the manufacturing industries.. Manufacturing has had several transitions in paradigms. With the craft industry marks the start point of manufacturing, it turned into mass production after the industrial revolution, and the concept of agility is now considered as the newest. 政治大 mass production, such as lean 立manufacturing and flexible production, and it should be paragon. It is widely believed that agility is much more than a simple deviation of. ‧ 國. 學. viewed as an aspiration and eagerness pursuing the excellence in the era of uncertainty and instability.. ‧. Generally speaking, it could be apprehended that the practice of mass production. y. Nat. io. n. al. From many researchers’. er. modular, and information-rich ones in the oncoming era.. sit. in manufacturing is expected to be succeeded by the production of smaller scale,. i n U. v. perspective, agile-based competition is destined to displace mass-production-based. Ch. engchi. competition as the new norm for global commerce.. (Dove, 1994; Goldman et al.,. 1995) Dove specifically pointed out in his research the distinctive features agility has that distinguished itself from the latest attempts to improve the mass production manufacturing to better suit the current business competition environment. The first one of the current attempts is the lean manufacturing.. As lean manufacturing is. widely recognized to promote the flexibility of operating architecture, agility goes a step further by promoting the reconfigurable operating architecture.. The second. kind of attempts is TQM, SPC, and Business Process Redesign (BPR).. Among the. 19.

(20) three concepts are all current transformation strategies attempting to change the businesses in one way or the other.. Dove, however, specifically discriminates. “transformation strategies” from such “operating strategies” as lean manufacturing, mass customization, learning organizations, virtual enterprises (VE), and so on (Dove, 1994) . It could, therefore, be concluded that the concept of agility is a completely new transformation idea, leading manufacturing to the next generation in its evolutional path.. Thus, in the understanding of agility, the relationship between agility, lean. advocated in his research 政治 Dove 大these [the concepts mentioned that “Agility is the core requirement and supports all of 立. manufacturing, TQM should be clearly understood.. ‧ 國. As shown in Dove’s research,. 學. above] as can be shown in Figure 2” (Dove, 1994a).. he placed agility as the core strategy that should be rooted before any attempts to. ‧. implement other ideas into practice. Afterwards, the transformation strategies such. sit. y. Nat. as TQM are placed in the middle, which means a company should implement these. n. al. er. io. practices and concepts as their tool for transformation. These tools will continually. v ni. assist companies in improving the practices they have and are implementing.. Ch. engchi U. Lastly,. the operating strategies such as lean manufacturing are the philosophies in a company’s everyday practice. These philosophies should be implemented at the company’s need, but should be built upon the rooted agility context.. 20.

(21) 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 2: Strategic Hierarchies (Dove, 1994a). Flexibility normally refers to no more than an enterprise’s or a factory’s. y. Nat. flexibility.. ‧. Furthermore, in the business context, major differences exist between agility and. er. io. sit. ability to “rapidly change from one task or from one production route to another” or “from one situation to another”. Thus, it is safe to conclude that flexibility is a mere. n. al. operational ability to better. v i n Ch accommodate different situations. engchi U. However, agility. skips away from operational level into strategic level that agility is an enterprise’s strategic ability to respond quickly to situations in the business environment, opportunities or pressures alike.. Thus, as advocated by researchers, the two. concepts differ in that flexibility only acknowledge the effect of “technological achievement and advanced organization” and “managerial structure and practice”, agility further considers the influences of a product of human abilities, skills, and motivations.. (Tsourveloudis and Valavanis, 2002; Mthupha, 2012). 21.

(22) Lastly, the topic of “nimble manufacturing” is gaining momentum as Lean the problem of simply eliminating wastes to increase the efficiency of Lean Manufacturing is facing obstacles, as considered by many experts, in creating sufficiently reliable final products.. The central concept of nimble manufacturing is. the ability for a production facility to change product mix easily and quickly. However, nimble manufacturing still focuses only in the production dimension of a company’s operation.. On the other hand, agility is a thinking that requires the. collaboration between both the internal operation and organization and the external. 政治大 operating strategy, under Dove’s classification, while agility should be considered as 立 partners and customers’ voices. Thus, it is clear that nimble manufacturing is still an. an all-around embracive transformation strategy (Dove, 1994).. ‧ 國. 學. In summary for this section, it is clear that the agility distinguished itself from. ‧. other manufacturing philosophies in that agility is more of a fundamental strategic. y. sit. n. al. er. io. as Lean and TQM.. Nat. ability that an enterprise should be equipped before adapting further techniques, such. 2.2. Ch. engchi. Business Processes of Enterprise Agility. i n U. v. An agile enterprise is an enterprise whose processes are designed specifically to respond effectively to unanticipated change. Researchers stressed the importance of business processes by pointing out that an effective method for analyzing the enterprise system is to analyze its parts; an organization is only as good as its processes. Enterprise operations have traditionally been analyzed in terms of such business functions as finance, management, engineering, and so on instead of processes.. However, Senge proposed a more elaborated systematic approach to. further investigate the subject matter by referring the business organizations to as 22.

(23) holistic patterns of interconnected parts. Thus, Senge introduced in his book the idea of “systems thinking as the fifth discipline”, which examined organization from a holistic perspective that treated an organization as an intertwined functions that work together instead of separately, stressing that enterprises should be considered as organized around the processes instead of their separate functions, divisions, or products.. (Meade, 1997; Rumbler and Brache, 1990; Senge, 1990; Blackbum, 1991;. Davenport, 1993) Business process could be defined as the start-to-finish holistic view of the. 政治大 As suggested by Senge, by立 examining the processes, viewing the organization from a related set of activities (cross functional or otherwise) that deliver value to a customer.. ‧ 國. 學. holistic system perspective is thus possible, and it allows better understanding of how to configure the enterprise for responding to unanticipated change.. When analyzing. ‧. a business, the core emphasis should be placed on business processes because. n. al. (Watson, 1994; Meade, 1997; Senge, 1990). er. io. production processes over the years”.. sit. y. Nat. “improvements in business processes have not kept up with improvements in. i n U. v. It is generally recognized that the life cycle of products nowadays are. Ch. engchi. compressed to months or shorter in the competitive globalized economy, especially in such fast-moving industries as computer software and hardware and other electronics devices.. Since business processes for design, production, sales, service, and. administrative functions exist collaboratively so long as enterprises function normally, enterprises with business processes well-designed for agility are more likely to achieve successful result in a long run than those without.. Process innovation is the. improving processes aimed at improving an enterprise’s operating processes so that costs would be lowered with improved quality.. In summary, it is important to. recognize that an enterprise should be viewed as a holistic system with business 23.

(24) processes work in interrelationship to support its functions.. It is crucial to. understand that viewing the enterprise as a system of business processes demands the usage of a systemic evaluation model.. (Meade, 1997; Mintzberg et al., 1995; Meade,. 1997; Madni, 2008; Mthupha, 2012) Madni listed out the characteristics of process agility. First of all, process agility emphasizes on the company’s ability to accommodate and to exploit vital new information as late as possible during development, even after product deployment. Secondly, process agility requires the company to incorporate flexibility in the. 政治大 agility requires the company’s 立 process remains flexible throughout lifecycle (e.g.. development process, aiming for rapid and cost-effective adaption. Thirdly, process. ‧ 國. 學. years after the deployment of a product, custom components can still be replaced with commodity off-the-shelf).. Fourthly, process agility is especially needed during. ‧. times when customer criteria changes rapidly or that the company is not. io. sit. y. Nat. manufacturing its products at large volume. (Madni, 2008; Mthupha, 2012). n. al. er. It could be concluded from the above discussion that the main consideration in. i n U. v. process agility is mainly focused on the ability to adapt changing environment and. Ch. engchi. uncertainty during every phase of an enterprise’s value stream, and process agility is a concept in support of a company’s transformation into agility.. 2.3 Frameworks and Attributes of Enterprise Agility. 2.3.1 Frameworks. The fundamental purpose for an enterprise to adapt agile practice is to possess a set of capabilities so as to make appropriate responses to changes taking place in its 24.

(25) business environment.. Lin et al. (2005) developed a conceptual framework of agile. enterprise, as shown in Figure 3.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 3: Agile Enterprise Framework Proposed by Lin et al. (2005). After equipping with agility capabilities, the core of agility will then be. sit. y. Nat. of agility.. ‧. The above framework shows how agility pillars add up to become the core body. io. er. able to inter-operative with the external environment to continuously improving the company’s agility practices.. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 4: Agile Enterprise Framework Proposed by Sharifi and Zhang (1999) 25.

(26) Furthermore, Sharifi and Zhang (1999) also proposed their conception of agility framework. Their idea begins with agility drivers, that are the operational pressures and turbulences comes from the competitive environment. The drivers would then push chain reactions through two pathways. The first pathway is through help the company develops its agility strategies, which will then affect the company’s responsiveness, and ends up improving the company’s agility capabilities.. The. second pathway is for the agility drivers directly improve the company’s agility capabilities for the company to better respond and adapt to the changing environment.. 2.3.2 Attributes. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. Numbers of distinctive capabilities are required for an enterprise to be able to successfully and effectively deal with uncertainty and unpredictability brought by the. ‧. business environment.. Yusuf (1999) summarized the distinctive attributes of agility,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. presented in table 1.. The attributes distinguished by Yusuf could be generally be viewed from four. al. n. v i n C h which is theUability to identify changes and main perspectives: (1) Responsiveness, engchi respond quickly to them, reactively or proactively, and recover from them; (2). Competency, which is the ability to efficiently and effectively reach enterprises’ aims and goals; (3) Flexibility and adaptability, which is the ability to process different processes and achieve different goals with the same facilities; and (4) Quickness and speed, which is the ability to carry out activity in the shortest possible time.. 26.

(27) Table 1: Attributes of Agility by Yusuf (1999) Decision Domain Integration. Related Attributes Concurrent execution of activities Enterprise integration Information accessible to employees. Competence. Multi-venturing capabilities Developed business practice difficult to copy. Team Building. Empowered individuals working in teams Cross functional teams Team across company boarders Decentralized decision making. Technology. 立. 政治大 Technology awareness technologies. Quality. Quality over product life Products with substantial value addition First time right design Short development cycle time. n. al. Partnership. er. io. sit. y. Nat Change. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Leadership in the use of current technology Skill and knowledge enhancing. v i n Culture of change Ch U e n gStrategic c h i relationship with customers Continuous improvement. Close relationship with suppliers Market. New product introduction Customer driven innovations Customer satisfaction Response to market changes. Education. Welfare. Learning organization Multi-skilled and flexible people Workforce skill upgrade Continuous training and development Employee satisfaction. 27.

(28) Furthermore, in Tsourveloudis and Valavanis’s (2002) research, they developed the attributes to measure each of the four operational aspects in an agile organization, shown in the following table. Table 2: Agility Attributes in each of the Operational Aspects by Tsourveloudis and Valavanis’s (2002) Production related characteristics. Market related characteristics.   . Setup or change over time Versatility of production process Adjustability of machine.  . Reconfigurability of the product mix Modularity index.  .  . Expansion ability Range of volume.  . Substitutability Operation commonality / Part commonality Variety of loads of material handling system Transfer speed Part variety. . Changeover effort. 學 ‧.  . Training level Job rotation Organization design Job design and flexibility. io. n. al. Interoperability Networking. er. Nat.    . Information related characteristics. y. People related characteristics. sit. 立. ‧ 國. . 政治大. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The above chart gives a general picture of what kind of agility practices are associated with which perspective of agility.. First of all, the production related. characteristics of a company are about the practices and concepts behind the manufacturing of products, which is based mainly on the company’s ability to adjust its production capacity to comply with market demand.. Secondly, the market related. characteristics concern about the incorporation of market feedback, and the expandability of a company’s product lineup.. They are based mainly on the. company’s responsiveness toward the changing of customer and market conditions. Thirdly, the people related characteristics concern with the people and organizational 28.

(29) design of a company.. Finally, the information related characteristics concern with. the interoperability and the networking ability of a company with its resources.. 2.5 Models of Enterprise Agility. This section presents the evolution of agility models. Major changes in the perspectives in viewing the concept agility will be presented.. This section is. concluded by the proposed model to be used in this research.. 2.5.1 Review of Agility Models. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The original proposer, Goldman of the Iacocca Institute, who coined the term “agile” proposed the very first agility model in 1995 by dividing corporate agility into. ‧. four main strategic dimensions – (1) enriching the customers; (2) cooperating to. sit. y. Nat. enhance competitiveness; (3) organizing to master changes; and (4) leveraging the. n. al. er. io. impact of people and information. Enriching the customers advocates the idea of. v ni. delivering the values centering on customers rather than products.. Ch. engchi U. Cooperating to. enhance competitiveness requires companies to utilize all necessary existing resources to effectively and rapidly respond to the changes in the market. Organizing to master changes requires flexible organizational structure one way or the other to allow rapid reconfiguration of the companies’ resources.. Lastly, leveraging the impact of. people and information acknowledges that the skills, knowledge, and experiences are the true differentiators between companies.. (Sherehiy, 2007; Goldman, 1996). Furthermore, later Yusuf et al. (1999) proposed to view agility from a three dimensional perspective – (1) Elemental agility, referring to the individual resources of a company; (2) micro agility, referring to the agility internal to a company; and (3) 29.

(30) macro agility, referring to the agility practices between a company and its partners. Moreover, Jackson and Johansson (2003) wrote out their agility model, identifying four dimensions that they considered as the distinguishing factors of agility – (1) product related change capabilities; (2) change competency with operations; (3) internal and external cooperation; and (4) people, knowledge, and creativity.. According to Jackson and Johansson’s model, their primary concern on. agility is on the change competencies in each of the functions of company. Finally, Azevedo et al. (2012) rationalized and concluded in his research that the. 政治大. main focus in agility should be concentrated on four distinctive characteristics of a. 立. Firstly, the operation aspect of the company should support the company. 學. ‧ 國. company.. in increase value adding to fulfil customer needs and maintaining the companies’ profitability.. Secondly, an agile company should be capable to respond to market. ‧. instability in a timely manner to different kinds of customers and markets.. Nat. y. Thirdly,. io. sit. Azevedo et al. argues that agility requires a company to “maintain close and. n. al. er. coordinated relationships” with major partners in its value chains, such as its alliances and major suppliers.. i n U. v. Lastly, it is suggested by Azevedo et al. that the organization of. Ch. engchi. agile companies should be able to support the companies’ fast response toward market changes.. 2.5.2 Proposed Agility Model. After extensive survey of the evolution of agility models, it is proposed that for the purpose of this research, the model used will be inferred and elaborated from the viewpoint developed by Azevedo et al. To conceptualize the idea, it is graphically presented as following: 30.

(31) Operations and Manufacturing. Alliances and. Agility. Strategy and Organization. Suppliers. Market. 政治大 and. Product. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Figure 5: Conceptualized Agility Model. The “Operations and Manufacturing Dimension” and the “Strategy and. ‧. Organization Dimension” are the internal dimensions of a company, and the. y. Nat. io. sit. “Alliances and Suppliers Dimension” and the “Market and Product Dimension” are. er. the external dimensions of a company.. al. n. v i n C h the principle behind For the purpose of this research, the sorting of companies’ engchi U. practices into each of the four dimensions will be based on Tsourveloudis and. Valavanis’s (2002) works, which provides a clear picture of how companies’ practices corresponds to the dimensions of agility.. 31.

(32) Chapter 3 Case Overview. This chapter presents the fact and the result from the survey of articles and secondary data, extracted and analyzed by the author.. General overview, company. profile, history and significant development, and agile conducts of each company are being presented separately.. Overview provides a brief description of the case. companies’ current situation as a general understanding.. History and significant. development provides the reader with the evolutionary picture of the company,. 政治大 The agile conduct of the company describes the agility 立. focuses especially on the significant accomplishment or milestone in its corresponding industry.. ‧ 國. 學. thinking and protocols under the agility framework and strategy that the case companies are adopting and realizing.. The information content in this section is. ‧. obtained from such publicly opened sources as published papers or other forms of. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. online media.. n. 3.1 Adam Opel AG (Opel). Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 3.1.1 Overview. The Germany based Adam Opel AG (Opel) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Stated based General Motor (GM) for more than 80 years, and has been GM’s main player in Europe nowadays.. Opel is currently the second biggest brand in the. GM group, and the third biggest automobile brand in Germany, following closely behind Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.. Opel controls its product value chains. starting from research and design to manufacturing, and Opel branded vehicles and parts are distributed in the Africa, Asia, and Europe regions under the Opel brans, and 32.

(33) are also sold in the Americas and China under the Buick brand name, in the Oceania under the Holden brand, and in the United Kingdom under the Vauxhall brand. (Wikipedia, 2014; Hoovers, 2014; GM Heritage Center, 2014; Opel, 2014) Rooted in 1862, the Opel legacy began as a sewing machine producer under Adam Opel. The company took two major shifts in product lines in its history. First time in 1886, 24 years after the foundation of the company, Opel began producing bicycles.. Later in 1899, the company decided to take on another major. change to produce automobiles. Although a random shift at the first glance, Adam. 政治大 After the fire serious 立 fire hazard that destructed much of Opel’s production. Opel actually leveraged Opel’s competencies in responding to the demand in the society.. ‧ 國. 學. facilities, Opel leveraged the similarities between the basic principles of sewing machine and bicycle parts into producing a new product with much higher financial. ‧. reward – the bicycle. With the expertise in sewing machine already, Opel soon. y. The next logical step in the. sit. Nat. became the leading bicycle producer worldwide.. n. al. er. io. transportation history, with the booming demand in automobile back in the era, Opel,. i n U. v. sensing the change in consumer needs, again leveraged its knowledge and sensitivity. Ch. engchi. in the transportation industry into producing the first automobile in 1899. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; Opel, 2014) Opel became a share-limited company (German: Aktiengesellschaft) in 1929, the same year that the United States based GM took majority portion of the company’s share. Two years later, Opel AG became GM’s wholly owned subsidiary as GM assumed full control in 1931. “Since its inception in 1862, Opel has set out to make technology affordable and widely available to a large segment of society. This vision has remained constant from its roots as a sewing machine manufacturer, its subsequent 33.

(34) expansion to bicycles and today remains at the heart of all automotive product development.” (Continental Garage Ltd., 2014) With the vision in mind, Opel has been standing strong on behalf of their belief by insisting the four cornerstones of brand and product portfolio: versatility and flexibility, driving dynamics, contemporary and distinctive design, and modern infotainment system. Opel owns 13 manufacturing facilities and four research and development centers in eight countries, and operates distribution networks in more than 50 markets globally. (Wikipedia, 2014; GM Heritage Center, 2014; Opel, 2014). 政治大. Furthermore, Opel along is responsible for many of the critical architectural and. 立. technologies on GM’s products. Opel owns the competency to developing the next. ‧ 國. 學. generation platform, providing the critical pathway to GM’s realization of future-oriented and fuel-efficient vehicles.. ‧ y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. 3.1.2 History and Significant Developments. i n U. v. Founded by Mr. Adam Opel on January 21, 1862, Opel was originally. Ch. engchi. established as a sewing machine manufacturer.. Opel distinguishes itself in. establishing several notable accomplishments in the automobile manufacturing industry. First of all, the company is well adopted to leverage its core competencies into responding to market demand fluctuation. Even though Opel was established as a sewing machine manufacturer, after Adam Opel sensed the potential in the rise in the bicycle industry, Adam Opel utilized its competencies in the moving parts technology and in mass manufacturing to become involved in the bicycle industry.. Afterwards,. years after Opel became the leader in the vehicle manufacturing industry, the 34.

(35) company again leveraged its knowledge and technology in the industry to turn into the automobile manufacturing industry.. Both of the transitions were successful,. allowing Opel to become the one of the most successful companies in all three of the industries it has been doing business in. (Wikipedia, 2014; GM Heritage Center, 2014; Gulf News, 2014; Opel, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014) Moreover, Opel is well organized to becoming the leading company in its corresponding industry.. The sewing machine manufacturer was the first industry. Opel joined when it was first established. Opel then become the most successful. 政治大 Later, after deciding 立 to launch another product line in producing bicycles.. sewing machine manufacturer at the time by producing perfectly customized sewing machine.. ‧ 國. 學. By successfully promoting the idea that bicycle as a new transportation method, and producing high quality but affordable bicycles, the company soon became the leading. ‧. player in the bicycle manufacturing industry.. By 1895, the year Adam Opel died, Later in 1899, the. sit. y. Nat. the company was the leader in manufacturing both products.. n. al. er. io. company decided to join the automobile manufacturing industry. Opel became the. i n U. v. very first car manufacturer to incorporate the mass production assembly lines as its. Ch. engchi. production philosophy. With the fast growing demand in cars at the time, and by producing affordable and high quality cars, the company soon becomes the holder of more than 37.5% share of the German market and the biggest exporter in the country. (Wikipedia, 2014; GM Heritage Center, 2014; Opel, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014) Furthermore, the company is equipped with capabilities to rise from the ashes. There is a detrimental incident in Opel’s history that could have completely destroyed the company, but Opel survived. During the World War II, although Opel was already owned by the United States based GM, Opel was fatally attacked by the 35.

(36) United States led Allies due to the Nazi Germany’s takeover of Opel’s outstanding manufacturing competencies and capacities to produce military vehicles and parts. Making the matter even worse, during the recovery of Opel after the war ended, Russian government took all of the facilities and technological documents back to Russia, and soon introduced Russian’s vehicles, based on Opel’s technologies from manufacturing to the car itself. While for most of the companies, it might be the end of the company’s story under this kind of situation, Opel actually turned around by began manufacturing parts with lower entry barriers. In less than five years, Opel. 政治大 In less than 10 years, Opel was able to achieve the highest production level in the 立 was able to re-establish the needed resources to re-start its automobile production.. Opel actually fully recovered from the detrimental situation. 學. ‧ 國. company’s history.. during the postwar era. (Wikipedia, 2014; GM Heritage Center, 2014; Opel, 2014;. ‧. Reference for Business, 2014). y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. 3.1.3 Agile Conducts Under Agility Strategy and Framework. i n U. v. Being a sole subsidiary of the General Motors (GM), Opel’s production. Ch. engchi. principles closely follow GM’s principles implemented globally. The GM principles could be categorized into four main dimensions: (1) people involvement; (2) continuous improvement; (3) standardization; and (4) quality.. Opel’s competition. environment is characterized by moderate change and diversity while intense competition.. The change Opel is constantly facing comes from the customers’. expectations on such issues as reliability, quality, customization, and so on. Furthermore, the increase in competition intensifies after the global products circulation increases. Both of the reasons trigger Opel’s interests in becoming an agile corporation.. Therefore, Opel has the following agility conducts already 36.

(37) implemented: First of all, Opel emphasizes on maintaining the leading manufacturing competencies and capabilities ahead of its competitors.. Understanding that. manufacturing competencies are the backbone of an automobile manufacturer’s products, Opel attempts to develop and hold the new manufacturing technologies and techniques to continuously improve its competitive advantage. Secondly, the Opel managements realize that human resources are crucial to a company’s transformation into agility.. Thus, the company changed the management. 政治大. of human resources in many ways such as job design, continuous training,. 立. empowerment, and so on.. Opel’s practices in employee empowerment and. ‧ 國. 學. motivation are some of the key elements to support Opel’s agile manufacturing. The concretized demonstration of the Opel culture could be seen in the company’s. ‧. teamwork system, the effective suggestion and feedback system, and the organization. y. Nat. io. sit. design that encourages continuous improvement and knowledge management.. For. n. al. er. example, Opel’s flexible working time and self-managed teams both increases the. i n U. v. manufacturing units to reflect the real level of demand, and flexibly submiss to uncertainties.. Ch. engchi. Thirdly, Opel’s incorporation of flexible manufacturing systems in its manufacturing facilities improved the production speed and flexibility, avoids lowering efficiency while submissing to the customers’ customization demands Fourthly, Opel’s strategic outsourcing of components and parts are closely monitored from the design phase to the manufacturing phase.. The closely. monitoring allows Opel to fully control the output quality of its own products without the risks in delaying or receiving unusable parts or components. The integrated 37.

(38) supplying network also allows Opel to decrease response time to the market since the interconnections of the management systems allow operational communications be minimized. Fifthly, concurrent engineering is employed by Opel to allow effectively grouping of physically scattered but needed resources. By effectively handle the company’s resources; it reduces the time to market of Opel’s products, thus providing advantages to Opel’s competitiveness in the introduction of new car models. Lastly, since agility strongly advocates the idea of customer-centric, it is crucial. 政治大. to promote strong bondage between the manufacturing facilities and the customers.. 立. In terms of the highly demanded customization options from the customers, Opel. ‧ 國. 學. utilizes a practice called “modularity”, in which the main framework design of the vehicles is already fixed, but allowing customers to choose the preferred combinations. ‧. of detailed options.. sit. y. Nat. io. er. It could be inferred from the above practical details that Opel in progressively working toward agility. Not only did the company changed its practices in the. al. n. v i n C h is equipped withUan all-embracing organizational production perspective, the company engchi. design, ready to adopt to the oncoming changes during the company’s continuous improvement.. The company is already recognized as being agile in quality,. innovation, service, and flexibility, leading to successful development of new products based on market demands. (Vazquez-Bustelo, 2006; Chinnaiah et al., 2000; Mothersell et al., 2008; Opel, 2014; GM, 2014). 38.

(39) 3.2 Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M). 3.2.1 Overview. The 3M Company, formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American publicly traded multinational conglomerate corporation based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is the component in both Dow Jones Industrial Average Components and S&P 500 Components since 1976, which marks the. 政治大 publicly traded in the United 立States. The 3M Company makes everything from tape company as among the top 30 best performing and most stable companies that are. ‧ 國. 學. to high-tech security gears. The diversified company makes products through five operating segments: Industrial; Safety and Graphics; Electronics and Energy; Health. ‧. Care; and Consumer. Well-known brands include Post-it notes, Scotch tapes,. sit. y. Nat. Scotchgard fabric protectors, Scotch-Brite scouring pads, and Filtrete home air filters.. n. al. er. io. 3M sells products directly to users and through numerous wholesalers, retailers,. i n U. v. distributors, and dealers worldwide. With $30 billion in sales, 3M employs 88,000. Ch. engchi. people worldwide, produces more than 55,000 products, operates in more than 65 countries, sales its products through distributors and retailers in more than 196 countries, and parents 29 international companies with manufacturing operations and 35 companies with laboratories. (Wikipedia, 2014; Hoovers, 2014; 3M, 2014) 3M follows a business model based on "the ability to not only develop unique products, but also to manufacture them efficiently and consistently around the world (3M)". (Wikipedia, 2014). 39.

(40) 3.2.2 History and Significant Developments. Founded by five businessmen in 1902, the establishment of 3M Company was originally targeted to be a mining company in Minnesota for corundum, the second hardest mineral for the use of many industrial purposes. The company, however, failed to mine corundum at commercial value, thus pushed the company’s transformation into one of the world’s most successful company of all time. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; 3M, 2014). 政治大. Historically speaking, the company distinguished itself from ordinary. 立. manufacturing companies in many ways, most importantly, its innovative culture.. ‧ 國. 學. After the setback in its original mining business, the company found its future by leveraging its knowledge in hard minerals into researching and developing the. ‧. industrial application of hard minerals.. The company successfully launched its. y. Nat. io. sit. sandpaper products, and became financially stable by the year of 1916.. Afterwards,. n. al. er. the company, again, faced obstacles when its grinding wheel products was unable to. i n U. v. achieve stable quality, affecting the marketing of the products.. Ch. engchi. The top-level. managers at the time began to support the innovative thinking of its workers into creating and developing new products in different fields. This incident marks the turning point for the company’s core competencies, and was the start point for 3M to become known as one of the most famous innovative company in the world. In less than 15 years after the company started encouraging the innovative culture, the company launched several well-known and extremely useful innovative products, such as Three-M-ite cloth, waterproof sandpaper, and Scotch brand tapes. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; 3M, 2014). 40.

(41) Until today, the 3M Company is still named by the American Institute of Management as one of the most successful and best managed companies in the United States. With operations in more than 190 countries and products interspersed across industries, 3M still distinguishes itself as an omnibearing company by willingly to invest and expand its businesses into such different expertise as electro-medical equipment, industrial systems, automobile related products, and so on. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; 3M, 2014). 3.2.3 Agile Conducts Under Agility Strategy and Framework. 政治大. 立. 3M’s culture of encouraging innovation led the company to become one of the. ‧ 國. 學. most diversified and innovative companies in the world.. 3M’s competitive. environment is moderately dynamic but highly competitive. Thus, the bargaining. ‧. power of its customers is high, and customers’ customization demand is also high. 3M. y. Nat. io. sit. solved the problem by implementing a standardized but flexible product design and. n. al. er. manufacturing principle. 3M designs its products mainly on standardized articles owned and produced by itself.. i n U. v. However, the combination of the constituent varies. Ch. upon customers’ opinion injection.. e n g c h ithis product design thinking in turn Furthermore,. allows 3M’s manufacturing to produce standardized base materials. After the base materials are produced, they are assembled or further processed according to the original design. This way, 3M is able to minimize the company’s operation by always producing the same base materials, but at the same time be flexible to market fluctuation by introducing different combinations to different markets. Furthermore, in order to continuously support the company’s innovative core competence, the management level requires all units to work in collaboration to integrate and to trigger new thoughts and ideas. Also, in order to arouse innovative 41.

(42) powers internally and to expand into different fields, 3M repeatedly purchase and merge those innovative companies. The agility practices incorporated by 3M are primarily concerned with three factors: speed, flexibly, and efficiency: Firstly, the organization design of 3M is gradually transforming into a project system organization, aiming to tighten linkages between departments and to encourage cooperativeness and flexibilities among each operational units in response to changes and uncertainties.. Furthermore, 3M strongly emphasizes the. 政治大. establishment of internal communication to allow smooth and thoughtfully exchange. 立. of knowledge and ideas throughout the organization.. Moreover, the utilization of. ‧ 國. 學. work cells owned and operated by employees to motivate workers’ sense of responsibilities over their work and projects.. ‧. 3M created a form of concurrent. io. er. incorporating several production principles.. sit. y. Nat. Secondly, the manufacturing part of 3M supports the idea of agility by. manufacturing by grouping workers into small and flexible cells to promote the. n. al. versatility in manufacturing.. v i n Ch Furthermore, by implementing decentralized stocking engchi U. principle, the storage areas are scattered on the production floor, near where the materials are needed. This principle promotes more efficiently management and greater control over the company’s inventory.. Lastly, 3M’s relationship with other firms is designed to promote its agility. 3M has strong and close cooperative relationship with its suppliers by outsourcing non-core activities so that 3M itself could completely focus on the development of its core competencies.. On the other hand, unlike ordinary companies avoid contacting. their competitors; 3M actually establish collaboration agreements with its potential 42.

(43) competitors in the exploration of new markets. 3M believes that by cooperating with companies fighting for the same market, this is a much more efficient way to gain access to the target market. (Vazquez-Bustelo, 2006; Moore et al., 2007; 3M, 2014). 3.3 Deere and Company (John Deere). 3.3.1 Overview. Deere & Co. is famously known as the world’s largest manufacturer and. 政治大. developer of farm equipment and lawn equipment for construction, forestry,. 立. commercial, and residential use.. John Deere operates through four business. ‧ 國. 學. segments: the “agricultural equipment, commercial & consumer equipment, construction & forestry” combine to make up the company’s equipment business,. ‧. while a credit segment provides financial services to its customers.. Nat. y. Together, the. n. al. John Deere operates under its. er. io. customers to improve the quality of their lives.. sit. four segments provide all parts and systems to the company’s customers, helping. i n U. v. famous slogan "Nothing Runs Like a Deere", providing its customers the most. Ch. engchi. reliable and smooth equipment under any operating condition. (Wikipedia, 2014; Hoovers, 2014; Deere & Company, 2014) While most of the business decisions are centered on its headquarters in Illinois, John Deere’s current operation spans across five continents in 27 countries, selling its products to more than 160 countries. (Deere & Company, 2014). 43.

(44) 3.3.2 History and Significant Developments. Originally established as a blacksmith company, the Deere & Company stepped into the farming equipment manufacturing industry when it began production of steel plows in 1837, when most of the farmers are still using iron or wooden plows.. The. Deere & Company distinguishes itself from ordinary manufacturing companies in that it is always trying new business models from time to time. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; Deere & Company, 2014). 政治大. The company gained its reputation with its new business model – while most of. 立. the manufacturers produce by order, John Deere actually produces its produces up. ‧ 國. 學. front, and displays them on the sales floor so that its customers could see and try the products.. Furthermore, the company was one of the pioneers in alliancing with. ‧. partners from outside of the industry in increasing the demand and production. y. Nat. io. sit. capacity for plows. The company began shipping its products by railroad and the. n. al. er. Mississippi River so that its products could be sold across America. John Deere’s. i n U. v. production rose quickly, becoming the first manufacturer to produce over 200 plows a. Ch. engchi. month by the year of 1849. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; Deere & Company, 2014) Later in the early 1900s, the company began its legacy in mergers and acquisitions, acquire complementary technologies and resources to strengthen the company’s core business in gasoline tractors, leading the company into the world’s biggest farming equipment manufacturer in both number produced and in its product lineups. (Wikipedia, 2014; Reference for Business, 2014; Deere & Company, 2014). 44.