Evaluation of the Implementation of Business Practices and Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) in Saudi Industry

The need to improve the performance of Saudi Industries to be more productive and competitive worldwide is well known and accepted. This paper draws the current situation of business and manufacturing practices, and the level of adoption of AMTs in Saudi manufacturing companies. It investigates the level of importance of manufacturing strategic objectives, current practices in the different organizational and technical industrial functions, the level of adoption of AMTs, and obstacles and expected benefits of these advanced technologies. The surveyed companies are well aware of the manufacturing strategies and they showed best business practices that are related to cost and production operation functions. However, activities related to marketing and product/manufacturing design are of less practice. Moreover, companies practice implementation of AMT related to CAD/CAE and MRP much more than CIM, FMS, CAPP, and IT technologies. Hence, the implementation of AMTs in Saudi industries is still at early stages and does not take full momentum for development to achieve the expected benefits from using AMTs. The surveyed companies do not feel that they have major difficulties or obstacles challenging the implementation except mainly those of cost and lack of labor skill. © 2010 King Saud University