Effects of Technical Experience on Robot Implementations

It is often assumed that firms with more experience using advanced manufacturing technologies can implement new production equipment more easily because such experience provides essential technical skills. Firms that perceive they lack these skills may be deterred from adopting complex new technologies. An empirical study was made to see how technical backgrounds actually affected implementation results when 31 Canadian firms adopted their first robots. The technical experience of plant staffs, system suppliers and production departments was assessed and compared with system start‐up times, reliability and reported management satisfaction. Greater experience among each of the contributing groups had different effects: more experienced designers and builders (both in‐house and hired) provided systems that started up faster but were no more reliable; more experience operating similar equipment did not improve start‐up duration but led to more reliable systems. Overall, good management of available technical resources was probably more important than having extensive technical experience.