Flexible Operations
A flexible approach to operations enables a firm to respond rapidly to changes in its environment. The key idea is to reduce the size of the business's core, and increase the use of flexible, temporary contract workers. One way to achieve this is to contract out work, often called outsourcing. Outsourcing is when a firm uses sources outside the business to do jobs that used to be done internally. Linked to this very closely is the American idea of downsizing. This means reducing the size of the firm to make it more responsive to the market-place.