Incorporating fexibility in manufacturing and operations – A case study in the Indian context

The electronics-enabled revolution has brought about rapid changes in not only the corporate and business world but has also resulted in changing the social and cultural patterns globally. The manufacturing industry is no exception and has seen much advancement in manufacturing technology during the last few decades. The advent of Flexible Manufacturing Technology (FMT) is one such revolution. Although the diffusion of FMT is fairly substantial in Japan and other developed nations, especially in the USA, UK, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and France; in India, the technology is in a nascent stage of take off. The paper presents a case study of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), which is one of the largest engineering companies in the public sector, in the context of FMT. This study is a part of an exhaustive survey covering aspects related to the current and likely future state of adoption and operation of FMT in the Indian context. Various aspects covered include the company profile, its FMT environment, the strategic factors contributing to the choice of FMT equipment, impacts of FMT on the technical and organizational systems of the company, and so on. A Situation-Actor-Process (SAP) analysis is carried out leading to the identification of learning issues and conclusions.