Track: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Abstract

In implementing process innovation, it is important to attain an appropriate state of deployment readiness. That is, ensure that deployment will run smoothly and relatively problem free. Essentially, deployment readiness features in pre-implementation phase and it is the state of preparedness for something about to happen. Of increasing interest in the literature is finding ways of achieving the highest degree of process innovation deployment readiness. Methods of assessing deployment readiness are now emerging in the literature using techniques such as fuzzy cognitive maps and simulation. However the influence of flexibility on deployment readiness is yet to be ascertained. The focus in this paper is on examining the influence of flexibility on readiness to deploy process innovation in manufacturing. In particular, the emphasis is on how flexibility mediates deployment plans for implementing manufacturing process innovation. Deployment plan is conceptualised in this paper as the approach, scope, and execution planned for the deployment of an innovation initiative.  The interrelationships of flexibility and deployment plans are studied using simulation of a job shop with routing flexibility and results show that deployment plan is significant to innovation deployment readiness performance and its significance is moderated by flexibility.