물류자동화 시스템의 도입에 사용되는 기업의 전략 유형과 이들이 기업의 운영성과에 미치는 영향

The purposes of this study are to define and classify material handling systems and to examine empirically the impact of specific automation systems with the causal relationships among material handling systems, the motives of introducing automation systems, and operational performance. Survey-based data for this study was collected from 184 Korean manufacturing firms and the measurement scales were tested and validated using confirmatory factor analysis, reliability test, structure equation modeling, and regression analysis. The results are as follows. First, the motives of introducing material handling systems are correlated with firm's business strategy. The types of business strategy are low cost strategy, flexibility strategy and marketing- intensive strategy. Second, the three types of business strategy have a positive impact on introducing material handling systems. And material handling systems also have a positive impact on operational performance. For the last, material handling systems mediate the impact between firm's business strategy and the operational performance. The mediating effect was proved through regression analysis, Sobel test, and the structure equation modeling. The result shows that the fit between firm's business strategy and material handling systems improves firm's operational performance. This study will offer guidance on how strategy and automation investment can be selectively matched to attain either profitability or growth.