Creating sustainable small to medium enterprises through technological innovation

Abstract

In order for UK manufacturing companies to meet the current pressures of a modern manufacturing environment they need to develop leaner, flexible, and more responsive manufacturing systems. At the heart of these requirements is the need to introduce advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) into companies in order to improve their efficiency and responsiveness to customer demands. While technology continues to be developed at unprecedented rates, the number of companies implementing such technologies is low. This in turn threatens their long-term economic sustainability. This paper initially identifies the reasons why small to medium enterprises (SMEs) fail to adopt new and advanced technologies. It then goes on to propose a coherent strategy for the effective introduction and application of AMT in SMEs before proposing a model for the introduction of new and advanced technologies into these companies. The model is subsequently evaluated through its application in a number of SMEs and compares its performance through assessing the companies who adopted the model against those who decided not to use such a formal approach to technology implementation (TI). The creation of a generic TI model provides a framework for a wider number of SMEs to introduce AMT into their respective organizations since it provides for a systematic approach for SMEs to introduce AMT in an efficient and effective manner, thus reducing implementation costs and improving project management efficiency.