This paper discusses the results of a recent study involving 16 leading firms in the consumer electronics industry in Brazil. It analyses the relationship between flexible automation and variables such as: managerial perception of flexibility; variety of products; machine changeover and increase in range of products. The objective of this paper is to find out whether managers, perceiving the importance of manufacturing flexibility, are using flexibility effectively or not, in order to shed some light on flexibility utilisation in a dynamic industrial sector of a newly industrialized country.
flexibility assesssment; flexible automation; manufacturing flexibility; correlation analysis