الگوهای کنونی و آینده با استفاده از فن آوری های پیشرفته تولید

This article records the findings from the survey about the pattern of current uses and future tendency of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT). The empirical data come from the project International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) which covers 18 countries. It was found that CAD, MRP, LAN, and CNC machines are the most popular AMTs used now. It seems that there is a sequence of adopting AMT, namely from simple to complicated. Green field and fully-integrated CIM systems seem to be rare. In three years, the uses of CAPP and shared database will significantly increase, which indicate the increase in integration level of manufacturing system. However, the main configuration of manufacturing will be stand-alone, islands of automation, and limited integration. Fully computerised integration in manufacturing system will unlikely be the main model in the near future. Regarding the relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement seems to be complicated and a couple of different patterns are identified. Practical implications, limitations and future research are also discussed finally.

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) refers to computer-aided technologies used in manufacturing companies. Noori (1990) defined AMTs as new technologies which are used directly by the firm in the production of a product. Youssef (1992) and Burgess and Gules (1998) distinguish hard-based from soft-based AMTs. Hard-based AMT refers mainly to physical technologies used in engineering, processing and administration. While soft-based AMT covers Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just In Time (JIT). This research will look at those AMTs, in which computer systems and/or computer-controlled equipment are involved. For example, in a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), both hard equipment and a computer control system are involved. In a Material Requirement Planning (MRP) system, only a computer system is involved. Other soft AMTs like TQM and JIT, in which computer systems may not necessarily be used, are omitted in this research. The need to achieve cost efficiency, quality, and flexibility without trade-off is necessary, and has imposed a major challenge to the manufacturing industry in the nineties and beyond. The manufacturing issues under the challenges are as follows (Goetsch, 1990, p.305; Ferdows and De Meyer, 1986 and Bessant, 1990 etc.): 1. Reduction of lead time to satisfy customer. 2. Getting new product to market more quickly 3. Flexibility to adapt to changes in market. 4. Improvement of product quality. 5. Reduction in cost. 6. Customer service. AMT has widely been regarded as a new and valuable weapon to rise to the challenge proposed by the new market situation to manufacturing industries (Hunt, 1987 and Noori, 1990). In the past 20 years, AMT has been widely used by manufacturing companies all over the world. However, world-wide research found that not all AMT perform as expected. Some AMT perform very bad and leads to a total failure. Some AMTs perform “satisfactory”, but did not produce the full benefits. Other AMTs perform well on the shop floor level, while the business performances of the companies were not improved (Voss, 1988). All these problems have caught the attention of both researchers and practitioners. Since the beginning of the 1980s, management of technology, especially implementation of AMT has been a hot topic (Voss, 1988). Other researchers investigated the relationship between the uses of AMT and performance improvement. The relationship was investigated conceptually (Macbeth, 1989, p.71; Bishop and Schofield, 1989, p.44), by case studies (Sohal, 1996 and Sun et al., 1999) or by survey (Sun, 1996 and Small, 1998). However, there is a big gap in recent literature about the patterns of AMT uses and the future tendency of its uses. This research aims to investigate these based on the empirical data from 18 countries. The pattern or sequence of AMT adoption, the future tendency of AMT uses, and their contributions will also be investigated. The research will contribute to identifying the configurations of current and future manufacturing systems. This article is structured as follows. After this introduction section, literature review and research framework will be introduced in the second section. Research method and empirical data will be described in the third section. The analysis results will be presented in the fourth section. Conclusions and implications will be discussed in the last section.

5.1. Conclusions and contributions This research revealed that CAD, MRP, LAN, and CNC machines are the most popular AMT. It seems that there is a sequence of adopting AMT, namely from simple to complicated. Fully integrated and green field CIM seems to be rare. In three years, the uses of CAPP and Shared Database will significantly increase, which indicate the increase in integration level of manufacturing system. However, the main configuration of manufacturing will be stand-alone, islands of automation, and limited integration. Fully computerised integration in the manufacturing system will unlikely be the main model in the near future. Regarding the relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement seems to be complicated than expected and reported in references. Simple linear correlation and ANOVA are the conventional method for investigating the relationship between two variables. In this research, both methods and scatter graph were used. A couple of different patterns of relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement were identified and methodological issues and practical implications are useful. The contribution of this research include: (1) reveal the extent and patterns of AMT uses, (2) reveal the tendency of AMT uses in the next three years, and (3) reveal the relationship between AMT uses and performance. 5.2. Practical implications The results on the pattern and tendency of AMT uses and contribution will be of reference to companies either using or producing AMTs. The benchmark table (for example, Table 4, Table 5 and Table 6 can help a company locate its position in AMT uses. It seems that there is a sequence from simple, stand-alone, islands of automation to integrated AMTs. This may be a guide for companies that have not implemented AMT yet. Companies normally started with CAD in design and engineering, MRP in planning and control, LAN in information sharing and management, and NC in factory automation. AMT will be mainly in the stages of stand-alone and island of automation. Fully integrated manufacturing systems are not likely to be in place in the near future. The adoption process is step-by-step and evolutionary. Neither vendors nor governmental organisations should promote fully integrated and green-field manufacturing systems as in the 1980s. Regarding the relationship between AMT uses and contribution, managers' subjective evaluation seems to support a linear relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement. However, statistic analysis reveals several different patterns of relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement. First, managers should be noticed that the relationship could be much complicated than expected. Second, for some AMT technologies, there are learning curve effects. It really takes time before the benefits show up. Finally, AMT uses should be accompanied by organisational and human development. 5.3. Limitations and future research Among the sampled companies, the percentage of small companies is rather small (cf., Section 3). This implies that the results of this research should be limited mainly to large companies. Future research can be conducted either with only small companies or to compare the small and large companies. Since the data sample of each country are not large enough to represent each country, this research only focused on identifying the overall pattern and tendency of AMT uses and contribution. In future research, the differences in each country should be investigated so that the relationship between national context and AMT uses can be identified and companies in different countries can learn from each other. This information will also be of reference for those companies that would like to establish companies or joint ventures in other countries/regions. This research has revealed that the relationship between AMT uses and performance improvement is rather complicated. This suggests that future research should not only reply on simple linear correlation to investigate the relationship between AMT uses and contributions. This research also revealed that the managers' subjective evaluation of AMT pay-offs were different from that revealed by statistical analysis. Future research should provide a list of AMT pay-offs and ask managers to select. Technology develops constantly. That implies that future research on the same topic will be use to identify the patterns and tendency of AMT uses and contributions. The IMSS project, on which this research is based, will repeat in the year of 2000. Results from the new data will be reported later. In a final summary, although fully integrated manufacturing systems will not be in reality in the near future, the uses of all types of individual AMTs will increase. Research in both technical areas and management areas should be enhanced to meet the development of AMT uses.