Agile Manufacturing Pays: The Empirical Evidence E.O. Adeleye , Y.Y. Yusuf, K. Sivayoganathan Nottingham Trent University, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Burton Street, Nottingham. NG1 4BU. England. Tel. +44 115 848 4738, e-mail: ezekiel.adeleye@ntu.ac.uk INTRODUCTION A number of articles [1, 2] have defined agile manufacturing and explained its essence. Agility is the proactive ingenuity to place competitive requirements in context, seize initiatives ahead of change and dictate the tune of competition. Change initiatives should proffer new solutions that add value to customers and enhance excellence on a wide range of competitive objectives. The following operational enablers are proposed as crucial to agile manufacturing. a) Transparent product customisation [3]. This means product enhancements that truly delights and adds value to customers. b) Intelligent automation in terms of plants that employ a high degree of computer power. The aim is to support knowledge work rather than routine efficiency [4]. c) IT-driven logistics that directly link suppliers, customers, employees and other collaborators directly to the cells, plants and divisions [5]. d) Collaboration among legally separated but IT connected companies. They are to jointly bid for orders, collaborate on new product concepts from design to replacement, and manufacture complex products [6]. e) Modular integration of technologies and earlier operations models as enterprise resource planning, just in time and total quality management [7]. f) Worker empowerment [8]. The paper argues that companies on higher levels of attainment of the agile manufacturing enablers will excel simultaneously on a wide range of manufacturing competitive objectives and company performance measures. The paper is organised as follows. The enablers are discussed in turns. Thereafter, short sections on methodology, results, summary and conclusion follow suit. TRANSPARENT CUSTOMISATION Whereas mass and lean production offer a few standard products over a fairly long period of time or a family of related products in rapid succession [9], agile manufacturing strives to customise products for individual customers and niche markets [10]. However, increasing concerns that 80 percent of product offerings now contribute only 20 percent of profit [11] is a threat to mass customisation, which is the goal of agile initiatives. There is the need to identify mass customisation practices that truly adds value to customers and result to higher levels of company performance. Several suggestions for sustainable mass customisation are available in the literature. They include focusing on products that created a company's success [12], reflecting transitions in customer value and technological change [13] and postponing customisation to the point of sale [14]. Some others include "transparent customisation" [15], seeking a "social equilibrium" among customer, company and ecosystem interests [16], ensuring "least volume and variety related costs" [17], and avoiding liability products [18]. Trueman and Jobber [19] captured all the suggestions. They argued for proactive and innovative solutions that target evolving changes in consumer demand, competitors' plans, technology and materials development, customer delight, and higher market share and sales.