The role of technology in manufacturing strategy: experiences from the Australian wine industry

Recent research has focused on identifying the role of technology in strategic manufacturing decision making in a particular industry, in this case the Australian wine industry. This industry was chosen because it has a major focus on the use of advanced process technology as part of its manufacturing competitive positioning. In particular, technology is used to maximise product quality and reduce production costs. Technology was identified as the most important area of manufacturing process decision making, followed by quality assurance and control. It was also found that quality is the most important competitive priority for wine producers, followed by product cost. Both of these were found to be directly influenced by process technology. The competitive priority of rate of innovation, although also likely to be influenced by technology, was found to be much less important. Integration of technology with the process was also identified as being a much less important decision area. An ANOVA determined that there were 32 categories of wine producers for which there were significant differences in the importance of technology.