Because agility is defined as the ability of a system to adapt itself to rapid and unexpected changes, the concept soon was applied to fields beyond manufacturing. The entire production process, starting from the customer order, and passing through product development, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain management, delivery and services, should be agile in order to be competitive. Also, for the software development industries, process industries and services industries, agility either is or will be essential. Agility covers both technical and managerial aspects.

?The 2007 International Conference on Agile Manufacturing will be held at Durham University (UK). The city and University of Durham provide an outstanding venue for meeting and discussing the latest advances in agile manufacturing methods and business processes. The conference will be preceded by a day of more interactive workshops to allow delegates to get a deeper understanding of the fundamentals and recent significant advances in agile methodologies.

A key aspect of this conference is the strong mixture of academia and industry. This allows for the free exchange of ideas and challenges faced by these two key stakeholders in agile methodologies and encourages future collaboration between members of these groups.

?This conference provides an excellent opportunity for you to update your understanding of agile methods from the design, manufacture and business process perspectives, whether you are an industry practitioner, engineering or business graduate student, or academic researcher in this field.