The Impact of Technological Change and OIPs on Lead Time Reduction

The paper examines the effect of technological change on operations improvement programs (OIPs) and operational performance. Previous studies in the field of operations management seldom took into account how the technological change rate of the industry affects the use of manufacturing programs and the resulting performance despite the importance of technological innovation in manufacturing. Our goal was to confirm empirically that plants with different level of achieved lead time reduction used certain OIPs to a different extent. We also analyzed how the technological change rate of the industry affects the use of OIPs. We used ANOVA and multiway ANOVA to confirm our hypotheses. Data were acquired through the fifth round of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS), which contains more than 550 companies from the ISIC sectors 28-35. We found that companies with effective lead time reduction implemented OIPs to a greater extent, and also process technology changes have a higher impact on the use of OIPs than product technology changes.