The relationship of integration and automation under an uncertain environment: a SEM model

Under an uncertain environment, two manufacturing strategies emerged: manufacturing system automation and manufacturing system integration. Existing case studies indicate that firms should adopt manufacturing integration first and then automate the manufacturing system to improve manufacturing performance. This study empirically supports this proposition using 303 responses from manufacturing managers. Analytical results also show that the combination strategy of manufacturing system integration and manufacturing system automation has more than twice the effect on manufacturing performance than using manufacturing automation strategy alone.