The measurement of manufacturing flexibility

In this paper the authors report the development of an instrument for measuring and analyzing manufacturing flexibility. Thirty-four items affecting manufacturing flexibility were identified from the literature and a preliminary instrument was created to measure them. Using a survey of 269 firms and employing factor-analytic techniques, the instrument was modified. The final instrument contained 21 items representing nine components of manufacturing flexibility. In order to determine technical validity (i.e., convergent and discriminant validity) additional data from 113 firms were collected. The results of this effort and suggested uses of this instrument are given in this paper.