Integration and Management of Technology

To survive in the increasingly competitive economic conditions of the contemporary world, manufacturing organizations are continually seeking ways of improving their market shares by becoming more effective and efficient and by producing goods of higher quality. It appears that advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) can provide at least some of the means of achieving these improvements. This book includes 40 papers which have been selected from 70 papers presented at the SAMT '89 conference held at Sunderland Polytechnic, because they concentrate on the management and strategic issues involved in the integration of AMT into a manufacturing organization wishing to achieve optimum improvements in performance and quality. The book is divided into four parts having distinct although overlapping themes. Each part begins with a short introduction by one of the editors, which is intended to identify a common context within which the reader can place the chapters in the part. Taken together, the book provides a wide coverage of important ideas and experiences for those who wish to study the effects of AMT or who wish to effectively embrace its potential benefits.
It is hoped, therefore that it will make a contribution to an improvement in the understanding of modern manufacturing techniques.