An integrative framework for flexible manufacturing systems diffusion

Existing FMS diffusion models do not capture many of the factors that impact FMS diffusion. The objective of this paper is to identify factors impacting the diffusion rate of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), to identify measurements of these factors, to provide an integrated framework to capture and group such factors, and to propose their expected impact on diffusion. We identify additional factors that, we believe, impact FMS diffusion and we extend the existing FMS diffusion models by incorporating these factors and showing their expected impact on FMS diffusion. We identified such factors from various studies: FMS related as well as non-FMS related studies. FMS studies that focused on its diffusion, explicitly identified factors impacting such diffusion; while FMS studies that focused on other FMS aspects identified factors that we believe are relevant to diffusion and hence included them in our framework. Additional diffusion factors are identified from other non-FMS studies relating to organizational culture, organizational strategy, organizational structure, and management style. Finally, we present all the factors (explicitly mentioned by these studies or implicitly derived from them) within an integrated FMS diffusion framework and propose how these factors impact diffusion.