Project Management and Workflow Analysis of Agile Manufacturing

Agile manufacturing (AM) is a typical concurrent and collaborative way between different enterprises and different departments in order to meet market requirement for time, cost and quality as soon as possible. From the point of view, AM is special project management. Agile manufacturing and project management (PM) have many same characteristics. The characteristics and relations of AM and PM are discussed firstly. The resources of the manufacturing enterprise alliances have characteristics such as autonomous, distributed, heterogeneous, dynamic, and so on. Therefore, the PM of AM is different from traditional PM. Secondly, a typical workflow of agile manufacturing is illustrated. Then the architecture of PM of agile manufacturing is proposed and analyzed, which includes some key technologies to support good project management. Combining the automation and standards of the workflow with the PM of high quality is a good solution to agile manufacturing. Finally, the technologies of information exchange and communication mechanism are introduced.