Exploratory study of the adoption of manufacturing technology innovations in the USA and the UK

Abstract

Manufacturing technologies, appropriately implemented, provide competitive advantage to manufacturers. The use of manufacturing technologies across countries is difficult to compare. One such comparison has been provided in the literature with a study of US and Japanese practices in advanced manufacturing technology use using a common questionnaire. The present study compares the use of 17 different technologies in similar industries in the USA ( n = 1025) and UK ( n = 166) using a common questionnaire. Largely, there are remarkable similarities between the two countries. This may partly correlate with the heavy traffic in foreign direct investment between the two nations. Notable differences are (1) across-the-board, US manufacturers are ahead of the UK firms in computerized integration with units inside and outside manufacturing organizations; (2) US manufacturers show higher labour productivity, which is consistent with macro-economic data, and (3) more UK manufacturers report the use of soft technologies such as just-in-time, total quality manufacturing and manufacturing cells. Hypotheses for future investigation are proposed.