Assessing manufacturing performance: an advanced manufacturing technology portfolio perspective
| Published date | 01 September 1999 |
| Date | 01 September 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635579910289202 |
| Pages | 266-278 |
| Author | Michael H. Small |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Assessing manufacturing performance: an advanced
manufacturing technology portfolio perspective
Michael H. Small
University of New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Introduction
Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT)
represents a wide variety of mainly compu-
ter-based systems which provide adopting
firms with the potential to improve manu-
facturing operations greatly. It is generally
expected that the resultant improvement in
operational performance will enhance the
firm's ability to reap the underlying market-
ing, strategic and business benefits for which
the systems were adopted. Some of the
benefits attributed to these technologies are:
improving market share; gaining earlier
entrance to market; responding more quickly
to changing customer needs; and the ability
to offer products with improved quality and
reliability.
These technologies have been classified as
stand-alone systems, intermediate systems
and integrated systems (Suresh and Mere-
dith, 1985; Small and Yasin, 1997). Technolo-
gies such as computer-aided design (CAD)
and computer numerical control machines
(CNC) are typically categorized as stand-
alone systems. Automated material handling
systems (AMHS) and automated inspection
and testing systems (AITS) are often classi-
fied as intermediate systems. Integrated
technologies can be categorized as either
integrated process technologies (e.g. compu-
ter-integrated manufacturing (CIM) and flex-
ible manufacturing systems (FMS) or
integrated information/logistic technologies
(e.g. just-in-time production (JIT) and manu-
facturing resources planning (MRPII)). The
general trend in the AMT research literature
has been to examine technology adoption and
any resultant change in firm performance on
the basis of the implementation of individual
technologies or in terms of implementation of
specific technology classifications such as
those presented above. Too much of the AMT
research, rather than looking at the entire
AMT portfolio, has been aimed at, efffec-
tively, analysing the impacts of stand-alone
systems (AMT stocks) or integrated systems
(AMT bonds).
A firm's combination of technologies or
technology portfolio presents an intruiging
unit of analysis that has not received sig-
nificant coverage in the AMT literature. It
is our belief that the time is ripe for an
investigation that seeks to determine to what
extent differences in firm performance can be
attributed to differences in the make-up of
the technology portfolios being used by
manufacturing firms.
As a first step in assessing firm perfor-
mance from a technology portfolio perspec-
tive, this paper will focus on how firms and
their technology portfolios are performing on
the technical/manufacturing attributes. The
purpose of this paper, in essence, is to
determine if the adoption of specific types of
AMT portfolios has resulted in improve-
ments in manufacturing performance. We
also seek to determine if differences in
manufacturing performance can be attribu-
ted to differences in the extensiveness of
AMT portfolios that firms have adopted. The
research questions that guide this study are:
.Do firms that have adopted different types
of AMT portfolios achieve improvements
in the areas of manufacturing perfor-
mance investigated in this study, regard-
less of the type of portfolio that is adopted?
.Is there a relationship between the exten-
siveness of the AMT portfolio adopted and
the level of performance achieved on each
of the performance criteria investigated?
.Are firms with more extensive AMT
portfolios achieving higher levels of im-
provement on these manufacturing attri-
butes than those with less extensive
systems?
The findings of this research should be useful
to managers, researchers and academics.
This study offers several contributions to
the AMT implementation and performance
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available
at
http://www.emerald-library.com
[ 266 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
99/6 [1999] 266±277
#MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-5577]
Keywords
Advanced manufacturing
technologies, Manufacturing,
Performance, Integration,
Technology
Abstract
Addresses the relationship be-
tween firm performance on 15
manufacturing attributes and the
extensiveness of advanced manu-
facturing technology (AMT) port-
folios that firms adopt. Mail survey
data obtained from 116 manufac-
turing firms in the USA that had
adopted a variety of AMT are used
in this research. On average, re-
sponding firms reported some im-
provements in manufacturing
performance for all variables ex-
cept changes in average labour
cost (total labour cost/number of
direct and indirect labour employ-
ees). Adoption of AMT tended to
result in marginal reductions in the
number of operators and marginal
increases in average labour costs
across all technology portfolio
classifications. For all technology
groups, firms recorded their high-
est level of improvement for pro-
duct quality, and operator output
rates/operator productivity. The
majority of firms that had adopted
both integrated process technolo-
gies and integrated information/
logistic technologies reported im-
provements for 14 of the 15
performance attributes covered in
this study.
To continue reading
Request your trial