Information technology and business performance in agile manufacturing: An empirical study in textile Industry

The importance of information technology/systems (IT/IS) to support current and future manufacturing operations has been widely recognized in the literature. Changes in the business environment represented by tough competition and variation in customer requirements are driving manufacturing organizations to adopt the concept of agile manufacturing. For an organization, agility means the capability to grow and prosper in an environment of continuous and unpredictable changes driven by customer-designed products and services. Agile Manufacturing (AM) is a manufacturing paradigm that focuses on smaller scale, modular production facilities, and agile operations capable of dealing with turbulent and changing environments. This empirical study explored the impact of the IT on business performance in an AM setting for in textile industry. The results indicate that IT had positive influences on business performance for textile industry. In conclusion, the assessment of the results along with future research directions is provided. © 2007 IEEE.