Agility and Flexibility Strategies in Manufacturing Systems: A Systematic Review with a Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Special companies, those in markets with fluctuating demand and supply, need to take the ups and downs in the market, disruption in their supply chains, and the technology and competitive pressure, and still maintain delivery, quality, and cost targets. The present systematic review, following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, aims at gathering 42 studies related to the manufacturing agility and flexibility, focusing on Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). The corpus consists of manufacturing flexibility, agile and leagile manufacturing, lean practice, supply-chain agility, digital transformation and Industry 4.0 and is segmented based on application domain, geography, methodology and publication period. The evidence suggests that agility and flexibility are associated with improved operational and organisational performance in SSA, but the pathways and degree of application varies significantly between firms and countries. The consistent challenges are cost, skills, infrastructure (reliability of power supply) and supply chain; management commitment is always cited as the final key. Digital technologies and Industry 4.0 are enablers that require a combination of infrastructure, organisational integration and human capability, and not just ownership of digital technology. There is some fragmentation in measurement of agility – different constructs are used in various surveys, there are formal agility indices, and new AI-assisted assessment frameworks are emerging – none of which have yet been validated for SSA. A series of shop-floor studies in Zimbabwe (process-parameter optimisation, data-driven maintenance, and agent-based condition monitoring) demonstrates that new capabilities at the operational level can be realized at relatively low costs, but are rarely related to the strategic agility literature. The conceptual framework and research agenda of the review call for a SSA-specific measurement tool, an integrated socio-technical model, operational as well as longitudinal evidence, and more robust mechanisms of building industry–academy capabilities, e.g., learning factories.