The impact of advanced manufacturing technology on manufacturing performance

This study addresses the relationship between firm performance on fifteen manufacturing attributes and the extensiveness of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) that firms adopt. Mail survey data obtained from 116 manufacturing firms in the U.S. that had adopted a variety of AMT portfolios is used in this research. On average, responding firms reported some improvements in manufacturing performance for all variables except changes in labor costs. Adoption of AMT tended to result in marginal reductions in the number of operators and marginal increases in total labor costs for all technology classifications. Across all technology groups, firms recorded their highest level of improvements for (a) product quality, and (b) operator output rates/operator productivity. The majority of firms that had adopted both integrated process technologies (FMS and/or CIM) and integrated information/logistic technologies (JIT and/or MRPII) reported improvements for fourteen of the fifteen performance attributes covered in this study. These firms also recorded significantly higher levels of performance than other firms on four of the fifteen performance attributes.