Perennial management data systems issues in US manufacturing firms
| Date | 01 October 2000 |
| Published date | 01 October 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570010304815 |
| Pages | 325-329 |
| Author | Arthur H. Gilbert,Roger Alan Pick,Sidne Gail Ward |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Perennial management data systems issues in US
manufacturing firms
Arthur H. Gilbert, Jr
University of Missouri ± Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Roger Alan Pick
University of Missouri ± Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Sidne Gail Ward
University of Missouri ± Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Introduction
All organizations have to make value
judgments about how to allocate time, staff,
capital, and budgets. Resources are never
unlimited; priorities must be set among
many competing needs. The need to allocate
scarce resources is no less fundamental in
information systems than in other areas.
Managers of information technology within
manufacturing firms have to set priorities to
determine where to allocate staff and capital.
This is particularly true in light of the
contrasting corporate culture between MIS
and corporate manufacturing (Gowan and
Mathieu, 1994). Knowing how manufacturers
prioritize issues will provide insights as to
the problems they consider important and,
therefore, how they are likely to allocate
their resources. Also, researchers need
guidance as to which issues most merit
study.
The need to prioritize issues is arguably
more critical in manufacturing than in other
sectors. Manufacturers are challenged by
today's difficult competitive environment.
Some pressures are faced by all firms; others
are unique to manufacturing. These
pressures on all firms include intense price
competition and challenges caused by
globalization. In addition, manufacturers
face demanding customers whose
expectations for responsiveness necessitate
short production runs, pressures to shorten
time from conception to design to
manufacture to delivery, just-in-time
production, and need to implement electronic
data interchange and other forms of
electronic commerce.
The examination of the priorities of
information systems issues has grown over
the past 20 years, into a significant body of
literature. A number of papers (Ball and
Harris, 1982; Brancheau et al., 1996;
Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1987; Clark, 1992;
Dickson et al., 1984; Niederman et al., 1991)
are general studies that explore the relative
importance of issues that face top
information systems managers at a variety of
firms. A few studies specialize in some way.
For example, Caudle et al. (1991) look at
public affairs; Wang (1994), Watson (1989),
and Yang (1996) focus on a particular
country; Lin (1994) discusses the impact of a
national information technology
infrastructure; and Couger (1988) examines
MIS issues in human resources. There is
little research addressing the relative
importance of information systems issues in
manufacturing firms specifically. Yet,
sophisticated technologies are important to
manufacturers' success in their competitive
environment and ``information systems are a
basic infrastructure of the modern business
organization'' (Yasin and Quigley, 1994, p. 25).
In spite of the importance of information
systems to manufacturers, there is little
guidance upon the proper direction in which
to proceed. The literature argues
convincingly for two directions at once. For
example, Kaw and Malley (1988) argue that
information technology and its application to
the manufacturing process is a requirement
for a factory to succeed. Their focus is upon
competitive advantage via more flexible
manufacturing. More recently, Xu and Kaye
(1997, p. 437) argue that too many systems are
internally focused and say, ``We believe that
external manufacturing information is
strategically important to the company's
decision makers.'' Most manufacturers lack
the resources to correct simultaneously
internal deficiencies such as a need for
computer-integrated manufacturing systems
as well as external deficiencies such as a lack
of supply-chain integration. In order to
understand the impact of these competing
pressures upon manufacturers, we examine
which issues are most important to them.
This paper establishes, empirically, the
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Industrial Management &
Data Systems
100/7 [2000] 325±329
#MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-5577]
Keywords
Competitive advantage,
Computing, Manufacturing,
Surveys, USA,
Management information systems
Abstract
Based on a survey of
manufacturing firms, with a
questionnaire based on issues
identified repeatedly in earlier
studies, this paper details the
most important information
systems issues for a sample of US
manufacturing firms. The top four
issues were found to be data
resources, competitive
advantage, end-user computing,
and aligning the IS organization.
The common thread among all top
issues is a focus external to the IS
organization, either enterprise-
wide issues or issues that
transcend the boundary of the
firm. A factor analysis of the data
found an underlying three-factor
structure: enterprise-wide issues,
IS functional issues, and
applications issues.
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