An empirical research for CNC technology implementation in manufacturing SMEs

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate whether CNC technology affects the firm performance and to determine the manufacturing parameters and competitive priorities that are affected by the adoption of CNC technology. In order to understand the effect of CNC adoption on firm performance, CNC user and non-user firms were investigated statistically to determine any significant difference between them. Then, the investigation was carried out on the effect of CNC technology on manufacturing parameters and competitive priorities. For this purpose a sampling pool including 100 SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) was investigated. Thirty-eight of these SMEs had previously implemented CNC technology. Our findings show that CNC implementation makes a significant difference on firm performance. Similar results were also found in the analysis on manufacturing parameters and competitive priorities indicating that firms gain significant benefits. However, surprisingly no significant difference was found with respect to delivery performance and volume flexibility between the two groups of firms.