Decisions on optimal adoption time for new technology

The rapid development of science and technology has brought a lot of convenience to the industry, and allowed companies to enhance their competitive advantages in the market. However, at some point in the growth stage, companies often reach a bottle neck of efficiency and effectiveness in production due to a saturated scale of economy, leading managers to face a decision of adopting more advanced technologies with consideration of market requirements and related costs. In this study, the adoption of a new technology is modeled as a decision problem in which related uncertain factors are considered to determine the optimal adoption time for the new technology. Bayesian decision analysis is used to integrate the subjective judgment of the decision maker and the objective information of the market. A practical case from a food and beverage company is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.