THE IMPACT OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION ON OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

This paper presents the results of a natural experiment conducted at a U.S. high‐tech manufacturer. The experiment had as its treatment the adoption, at a single point in time, of a comprehensive enterprise information system throughout the functional groups charged with customer order fulfillment....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Production and operations management 2002-03, Vol.11 (1), p.33-53
Main Author: MCAFEE, ANDREW
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advanced manufacturing technologies
Case studies
Costs
Enterprise resource planning
Experiments
Information systems
Information technology
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
Inventory
Longitudinal studies
Manufacturing
Manufacturing execution systems
OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Operations management
Operations research
PERFORMANCE IMPACT OF INFORMATION
Point of sale systems
Production management
Productivity
Research design
Studies
TECHNOLOGY
Technology adoption
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper presents the results of a natural experiment conducted at a U.S. high‐tech manufacturer. The experiment had as its treatment the adoption, at a single point in time, of a comprehensive enterprise information system throughout the functional groups charged with customer order fulfillment. This information technology (it) adoption was not accompanied by substantial contemporaneous business process changes. Immediately after adoption, lead time and on‐time delivery performance suffered, causing a “performance dip” similar to those observed after the introduction of capital equipment onto shop floors. Lead times and on‐time delivery percentages then improved along a learning curve. After several months, performance in these areas improved significantly relative to preadoption levels. These observed performance patterns could not be well explained by rival causal factors such as order, production, and inventory volumes; head count; and new product introductions. Thus, this longitudinal research presents initial evidence of a causal link between IT adoption and subsequent improvement in operational performance measures, as well as evidence of the timescale over which these benefits appear.
ISSN:1059-1478
1937-5956
DOI:10.1111/j.1937-5956.2002.tb00183.x