Leadership Cognition Oriented Agile Manufacturing Strategy Model

During the 21 Century, Agile Manufacturing (AM) is widely accepted as one of the best operational model in a time demanding competition environment. Therefore, how to develop a sucessful AM Stradgy has brought more and more attention from the manufacturering enterprises in modern society. On Basis of the Rational Strategic Model, the objective of this study is to develop an AM Model which will meet the needs of the leadership in manufacturing enterprises. The proposed model is analyzed and evaluated statistically by applying the database of International Manufacturing Strategy Survey(IMSS)Initially, the AM strategic model is established based on the Rational Strategic Model. The Rational Strategic Model considers that the Strategy decision is the consequence of the cognition of the situation by strategy maker. Based on the theory of above, this study developed the AM strategic Model. The existing model analyzed the disturbance of situation cognition during the strategy making process, for instance, the angle and the timing of strategy developmentThe AM Rational Strategic Model and the principle of management psychology provide the foundation in establishing the Situation Cognition Model in this study. Since the Enterprise leadership'cognition on strategic situation is the outcome of the interaction between the leader himself and the environment, two major issues are involved in this strategic cognition process: The balance between the leadership's strategic situation cognition and other people's cognition, and the balance between the leadership's strategic situation cognition and the cognition of strategic status. The analysis of those two issues becomes the two major components of the Strategic Situation Cognition ModelBased on the AM Rational Strategic Model and Leadership'Strategic Situation Cognition Model, this research developed an AM Strategic Model which is oriented to the manufacturing enterprise's leadership. The Model consists the following four steps: external environment cognition, strategic situation cognition, enterprise strategic conception and AM Strategy decision. Based on the existing model, a research hypothesis was further proposed, a path model for evidence analysis was developed, and the related factors were defined. The model was evaluated and validated by using factor analysis, canonical correlation analysis, typical correlation analysis and IMSS. The validation was conducted in two sessions. The first session is focused on analyzing the enterprise leadership'cognition on market environment, and also their cognition on competition under different cognition effect. The study results suggested:If the enterprise leadership have the different cognition on market environment, their cognition on competition situation is different as well. The price of product is the only critical competition factor being agreed under various environment cognition The second session is focused on analyzing the decision of AM strategy under different strategic situations. The analysis results suggested that due to the limitation of environment cognition on each individual leader, the way they cognize the competition situation will affect his competition strategy conception, thus affect his decision on AM strategy; In addition, different leadership will design the different AM strategy even though they are facing the similar competition situation and having the similar competition strategy conception.This study also analyzed the AM strategic model specific to domestic enterprise leadership. The study results from market environment cognition of domestic enterprise leadership suggested that the majority of domestic enterprise leadership believe the competition is very intensive, the competitors are more than they expected, the marketing scope is large, and the market can be easily raised, especially for domestic market, etc. While the study on competition cognition and the AM strategy from domestic enterprise leadership suggested that the domestic manufactures are very demanding on the flexibility of product assembling, the time frame of product launching and the pace of product delivering. In according to these concerns, the author of this study provided some valuable strategies and advices.This study also explored the history and developing process of AM strategy from a new angle, which completed the AM strategy on theory. The analysis of leadership'cognition on Strategic Situation Model further enriched the Theory of strategic management. The results from theoretic research to validation in this study are also very instructive for the manufacturers who are pursuing to develop and follow the AM strategy in the future...