Advanced manufacturing technology adoption and innovation: A systematic literature review on barriers, enablers, and innovation types

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the barriers and enablers within the adoption process of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) and their relationship to different innovation types as outcomes of this process. Whilst the requirement to improve AMT adoption is widely acknowledged, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the main barriers and enablers within the adoption process. Furthermore, it does not reveal how these barriers and enablers are related to different innovation types. We provide a systematic literature review of the barriers and enablers to AMT adoption. The findings of this review are based on a total of eighty-seven peer-reviewed articles from the business and management literature from 1999-2019. Our findings provide several contributions to the literature. Firstly, by integrating evidence from empirical studies, we identify five main types of barriers and four main types of enablers to adoption. Secondly, we conceptualise three key stages of the AMT adoption process and classify the barriers and enablers on the basis of whether they apply to an individual stage, or whether their influence is pertinent across the whole process. Thirdly, we reveal the relationship between categories of barriers and enablers associated to innovation types outcomes: product, process, service or business model innovations. The results of our study provide important implications for both managers and policy makers based on the evidence of the key barriers and enablers. Further, we suggest several directions for future research, including the need to examine the post-installation stage.