Synchronous innovation the new trend in manufacturing management

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss a recent development in the area of manufacturing management-aptly called "Synchronous Innovation". This is a strategy which calls for synchronous deployment of technological and administrative innovations during modernization programs in manufacturing organizations. The spectacular growth in organization worldwide adopting the New Manufacturing Technologies (NMTs) has led to a growing body of research on effective implementation of the NMTs. One after the other, NMTs such as Group Technology (GT), Just In Time (JIT), Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), CAD/CAM, Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), have grown in tremendous popularity in the past decade. One can safely predict that the nineties will see the drive towards new Manufacturing Revolution become much more vigorous, and widespread, with a growth many orders of magnitude higher than we witnessed in the previous decade.