Among the greatest challenges facing manufacturers are related to their ability to cope with change, manufacturing small and medium size enterprises or SMEs facing the same challenge and change which have deep impact on SMEs situation in the market. Managing planned change is difficult in itself. However, managing unplanned change demands the ability to react faster and use new strategies to match market conditions, and customer demands in a way that maintains or creates competitive advantage. Therefore manufacturing SMEs need agility for handling unanticipated change occurring at the early...

Todays manufacturing industry is not for the passive player, it requires the best in competitiveness, innovation, speed and agility. It is an industry where complexity and competition is ever increasing. As distributors and customers push industrial manufacturers to increase their flexibility, the rules of engagement are altering and the factors upon which companies compete are changing. This change has been increased the level of competition of manufacturing SMEs. The best way to response to this challenge of global competition is through the ideal of World Class Manufacturing. World class...