ABSTRACT
The current dynamic global business environment, which is characterized by customer-driven markets, shorter product life cycles, and narrow niches, requires the manufacturing function to play an active role in an organization in coordination with other functional units for the organization as a whole to gain competitive benefits. Recent increases in international competition are awakening U.S. manufacturing companies to realize the need to use manufacturing as a competitive weapon and to enhance manufacturing performance. One of the tools to enhance manufacturing performance is advanced information technologies (IT) implementation.
