Identifying the Contribution of IT/IS Infrastructure to Manufacturing Agility

Abstract

Competitive environments are driving manufacturing organisations to react quickly to unpredictable changes and customer opportunities. To face these new challenges, manufacturing organisations require the support of information technology/systems in their operations. An information technology/systems infrastructure capable of coping with these changes is in part responsible for determining the level of contribution of information systems applications. Seven key characteristics of IT/IS-containing infrastructure were investigated in a survey. The application of factor analysis showed three main factors associated to IT/IS infrastructure. A series of attributes were associated to the identified characteristics of IT/IS for agility, enabling the development of a cascade-like model to facilitate the evaluation of IT/IS with special emphasis on infrastructure.