Objectives for adopting advanced manufacturing systems: promise and performance

Presents the results of an exploratory investigation of the level of importance that firms place on several business and technical objectives when they are considering AMT adoption. Mail survey data obtained from 125 manufacturing firms in the USA that had adopted a wide variety of AMT are used in this analysis. On average, these firms had placed the highest levels of importance on improving product quality, reducing manufacturing leadtimes, reducing per unit production costs and improving responsiveness to changing customer needs. Lower levels of importance were reported for the market‐based objectives of increasing market share and gaining earlier entrance to market. In addition, although firms had also ascribed lower levels of importance to the organizational adaptation benefits of developing an integrated organization and developing management expertise, they were satisfied that implementation of the technologies had a positive influence on achieving these benefits. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the 15 benefits that were investigated in this study can be viewed as representing three interdependent dimensions: technical/operational objectives, total quality management‐based objectives, and business or marketing‐based objectives.