A classification of approaches to planning and justifying new manufacturing technologies

Abstract New manufacturing technologies (NMT) offer many advantages to those who employ them. However, the complexity associated with these technologies has caused the process of justifying these technologies to be muddled, confusing, and uncoordinated. This analysis of the literature gives the reader a comprehensive perspective of the entire field. Through the approach taken for organizing the literature, several avenues for future research should become obvious to the reader. This paper provides an up-to-date review of the thinking on the subject; approximately one-fourth of the papers included in the study were published no earlier than 1988.

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