تهیه یک ابزار توجیهی برای فناوری های تولید پیشرفته: تحلیل ارزش مزایای گسترده در سیستم

Growing competition and increasing demands from customers are forcing small manufacturers to consider investments in advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs). For many reasons, such investments are often difficult to justify by means of a traditional economic analysis alone. As a result, it is often necessary to consider the system wide benefits associated with AMTs in order to justify their adoption. A process known as system wide benefits value analysis (SWBVA) has been developed to assist decision makers with their advanced technology decisions. Users of the tool first perform an economic analysis to see if the investment is economically justified. If it is not yet justified, the gap between the minimum desired economic return and the actual return amount is calculated. Users can follow a series of procedures to determine if the value of the system wide benefits associated with the advanced technology is sufficient enough to justify this gap. These procedures involve customizing a formal model of system wide benefits to suit the technology decision being evaluated, setting desired goals for each benefit being considered, and answering a series of input questions about the level of those benefits they feel can be obtained from such a technology. A fuzzy expert system is the internal mechanism used to manipulate user inputs into crisp output values for each benefit category. If the determined output values for each system wide benefit are greater than or equal to the user-defined benefit goals, then the gap amount is believed to be justified. Users are provided with a summary report on the calculated results and are allowed to readjust their benefit goals and repeat the analysis if necessary.

Innovation and the adoption of advanced technologies are crucial activities for manufacturing firms today. This is especially true for smaller manufacturing firms which have not necessarily established formal processes for research and development (R&D). R&D challenges facing small manufacturers are numerous (Wallsten, 1998). Small manufacturers often take on an antiquated philosophy when it comes to innovation, and although there seems to be no scarcity of good ideas within these companies, the ability to take ideas and develop them into new products or processes is often lacking. The evaluation tool proposed here is but one aspect of a larger project that is underway on the management of technological innovations (MOTI) for small manufacturers. The main purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the technological, psychological, and behavioral barriers that inhibit the innovation process in smaller firms, and to likewise uncover the success factors that make prosperous innovations possible. Through preliminary interviews with small manufacturers in Kansas, it was determined that this objective could best be met through a tool that provided examples of past successes and failures in the innovation process, while serving as a useful guideline for gaining insight and making decisions about current innovative ideas. This main aspect of the project is partially fulfilled through the collection and organization of a database of cases that describe examples of past manufacturing innovation successes and failures. The case database has been developed through a series of interviews and focus group discussions with chief executive officers (CEOs), presidents, and managers of small manufacturing firms in Kansas. Two tools are being developed simultaneously to utilize the case database and fulfill the main objectives of the project: (1) a tool which utilizes case grammar to classify past cases and draw comparisons to current situations and (2) a tool which applies analogical reasoning and proverbs to describe past cases and make comparisons to current scenarios (Xue, 1999). The evaluation tool presented here is meant to be a supplementary tool to this larger aspect of the project. It is felt that once firms have the opportunity to analyze their current ideas through the examination of cases in the aforementioned tools, a mechanism for formally evaluating those projects then becomes necessary. The methodology presented here will enable decision makers in small manufacturing firms to make informed and complete analyses of their potential advanced technology projects. Such analyses will consider not only the traditional cost factors involved in such investments, but also the secondary, system wide benefits that can often be obtained with advanced technologies. The following sections will describe the proposed tool, system wide benefits value analysis (SWBVA), in further detail. First, a comprehensive outline of the problems associated with evaluating advanced technologies along with an analysis of the literature on past evaluation methods is presented. The next section includes an introduction to the SWBVA along with a depiction of the benefits model and a description of the SWBVA process. A synopsis of the data collection modes for the modeling aspects of the system is provided next, followed by an account of the modeling procedures themselves. Finally, an example to illustrate application of the tool is offered along with some conclusions and suggestions for future research.

More and more, small manufacturers are coming to the recognition that investment in advanced technologies is necessary for survival. Growing competition and increasing customer requirements and demands are the main factors contributing to this need. However, in order to justify AMTs, these companies must often consider system wide benefits in their analyses. This is due to many problems involved with traditional economic analysis of such equipment, including high hurdle rates and a tendency to compare investments with the status quo. The process proposed here, SWBVA, provides a formalized model of system wide benefits for decision makers to consider. It uses an expert base of knowledge to determine a more realistic value for the system wide benefits associated with a particular investment decision, while also allowing the decision maker to set their own goals for how much of those benefits they feel are necessary to justify the technology. The SWBVA makes the process of using the more intangible, system wide benefits in an investment evaluation more formalized, organized, and scientific. The use of a fuzzy expert system also allows for consistency among different decision makers. Several opportunities for further R&D have been identified in this area. First, it is recommended that the SWBVA process proposed in this research be implemented into a software or Internet-based tool. This will make the steps involved in the fuzzy evaluation procedures of the process much more accurate, and will allow the process to be easily accessed and manipulated by those that can most benefit from the use of such a tool. In addition, it is proposed that further efforts be made to add to the data basis of the system through additional surveys of the experts in this field. Although some data have been gathered to define the basic processes of the SWBVA, the gathering of more data to add to the fuzzy expert system will further enrich the validity of the tool. Another aspect to be considered in the collection of further data is the examination of the dependencies between the input variables for those benefit categories that have more than one input. These dependencies were not taken into consideration in the development of the rule outcomes even though some interactions may in fact exist. The collection of further data could also include a surveying of the experts to determine what the proper outcomes should be when dependencies are taken into consideration. An additional area of research lies in the expansion of the SWBVA to also include the more intangible or system wide costs associated with AMTs. Christenson (1997) provides a good basis in this area by detailing the instances when newer technologies contribute to the failure of companies because of the unforeseen costs associated with them. The inclusion of a system wide costs model in conjunction with the system wide benefits model established here would make the evaluation process for advanced technologies even more complete.