Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
bad. Finally, Smadi (2001) stated that employee
innovation in the manufacturing area in Jordan
was more prevalent in small-size businesses than
in larger ones, where he explored 870 employees
and studied their inclination to adopt the Kaizen
model in improving work environment.
One of the most important tools that help in
improving this sector is information technology
(IT), where its role in this sector ranges from sup-
porting operations to a major role in automation
and control of operations. The important role of
information technology in manufacturing espe-
cially in reducing cost and pushing operations
forward, and adding value to the manufacturing
process, which satisfies firms' objectives. The
importance of production information systems
(PIS) is becoming vital to all manufacturing firms
to gain and sustain competitive advantage. The
adoption of PIS is becoming a priority to firms in
this sector especially those who work in alliance
with foreign (global) firms.
The word adoption is not a secret one, firms
need to convince their employees and managers
to effectively use and utilize information systems
in a way that achieves firms' objectives. What
makes this adoption more important, is that when
we deal with complex systems (like EIS or PIS)
users need more attention and involvement to
guarantee their acceptance and thus the full benefit
from such systems (Wang, Hsieh, Butler & Hsu,
2008). Research indicates the importance of users'
adoption when dealing with new technology. Users
are cautious to use new technology unless they
believe it will bring to them some advantage, and
would be easy to use. Also, they need to make sure
it is compatible with systems they used before and
many other factors that influence their perception
of technology. This study reviewed the literature
related to the technology acceptance area and
adopted the innovation diffusion theory (IDT)
proposed by Rogers in early 1983 (Rogers, 1995;
Moore and Benbasat, 1991). This study reviewed
also the literature in the area of production systems
explored the factors predicting the rate of adoption
of such systems through the reported opinions of
managers in this sector. Finally, conclusions and
future work are stated at the end.
bAckground
Many theories tackled the adoption of new
technology concepts and proposed a variety of
theories and models that exceeded hundreds of
propositions and variables. The argument in this
domain emphasizes finding the suitable set of
“factors” that can predict users' behavior with
respect to using new technology. Most theories
and research utilized the users' “intention to use”
the technology as a surrogate to actual usage of
the technology. Thus, many theories used “In-
tention to Use” (ITU) as the dependent variable,
and proposed many predictors ranging from two
variables to more than ten in some cases. The fol-
lowing section will explore the literature related
to the IDT and other theories in the technology
acceptance domain, then literature related to
production information systems and enterprise
resources planning systems usage.
production information systems
Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) control all
major business processes with a single software
architecture in real time (Turban, Leidner, McLean
& Wetherbe, 2008). Under the EIS category, the
same authors list production information systems
(PIS), Supply Chain Management Systems (SCM
systems), Customer relationship Management
Systems (CRM systems), Product lifecycle man-
agement systems (PLM systems), and Enterprise
Resource Planning systems (ERP Systems). EIS
account for 54% of licensing revenues, and ex-
pected to have the highest growth rates (expected
to be $55 billion in 2012) (McCrea, 2008). Our
focus in this study is more towards PIS and ERP
as they relate to manufacturing and industrial
applications.
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