Creating a Volume Flexible Firm

Volume flexibility is an important but not very well understood concept that allows a firmto leverage its scarce resources for optimal utilization with upswings and downswings inbusiness. Our research using 3 different research methods suggests that the key problemsin developing a volume flexible response are related to: the inability of firms to defineand measure volume flexibility capability and the unavailability of a methodology thatallows the firm to zero in on the appropriate volume flexibility responses. In this paperwe define what volume flexibility is and give examples of ways by which firms canbecome more volume flexible.[...]