Problems of advanced manufacturing technology benefits evaluation

The aim of this paper is to draw an attention to the problems of advanced manufacturing technology benefits identification and evaluation. We will present some pieces of evidence that manufacturing companies are aware of their inability to assess these benefits properly and why the cost of technology is usually well known, there are some difficulties to balance the high initial cost of technology implementation by clear and sound benefits that would be quantifiable in financial terms. Many benefits are ignored at all and that is why many AMT project proposal fails in initial phases of the relevant decision making processes or the project is carried on only at the price of various restrictions. Moreover, we will demonstrate that there are appreciably high differences between AMT benefits expected before the particular AMT project has been implemented and the benefits attained after the project actual implementation. We believe that better insight into these problems could help to get more advanced manufacturing technology project implemented and to prevent disappointing results of such a project in an early stages.