در بسیاری از مطالعات عملیاتی تاثیر مدیریت کیفیت فراگیر بر عملکرد شرکت تابحال مورد بررسی قرار گرفته است. در مقایسه با شرکت های تولیدی بزرگ، اکثر شرکت های کوچک و متوسط آرام تر و اغلب تمایل به پیاده سازی شیوه های مدیریت کیفیت ندارند. هدف این مقاله بررسی رابطه بین ابعاد مدیریت کیفیت و عملکرد شرکت با مورد مطالعه قرار دادن بنگاه های کوچک و متوسط تولیدی به عنوان نقطه ی تمرکز این تحقیق است. علائه بر این ، شناسایی موانع اصلی در پیاده سازی شیوه های مدیریت کیفیت در بنگاه های کوچک و متوسط تولیدی از دیگر اهداف این تحقیق می باشد. داده های تجربی از نمونه ای از ۱۲۷ شرکت تولیدی در هند به منظور بررسی اهداف جمع آوری شده است. آزمون مدل ساختاری فرضیه های پیشنهادی تایید میکند که نشان می دهد مدیریت کیفیت فراگیر به طور مثبت با عملکرد تولید مرتبط است.

کلمات کلیدی: مدیریت کیفیت فراگیر ، بنگاه های کوچک و متوسط ، عملکرد شرکت

Abstract

In operation literature, the effect of total quality management on firm performance has been investigated in many studies. Compared to large manufacturing firms, most small and medium sized firms are slow and often reluctant to adopt quality management practices. This paper aims to examine the relationship between quality management dimensions and firm performance, considering manufacturing SMEs as focal point of research. Furthermore, the intention is to identify the major barriers to adoption of quality management practices in manufacturing SMEs. Empirical data were drawn from a sample of 127 manufacturing SMEs in India to address the research objective. The test of the structural model supports the proposed hypotheses, that total quality management is positively related to manufacturing performance.

۱. Introduction

Small and medium-sized manufacturing firms nowadays, are under severe competitive pressure due to increased global competition and customer requirement. These challenges along with higher materials and energy costs in recent years have forced many small-medium manufacturing firms to continuously modify and optimize their operations both at the strategic and tactical levels [1]. Quality has been considered as significant driver for success for manufacturing SMEs in the era of global competition [2]. The majority of successful manufacturing companies have embraced total quality management (TQM) strategy and realized its invaluable contribution [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

TQM philosophy is mainly dominated by large firms [8] but the fear of losing contracts from large manufacturing firms prompt SMEs to bring quality into their system [9], to enhance firm’s efficiency and competitiveness. Compared to large organizations, manufacturing SMEs in India have been slow to adopt TQM [10], without sufficient conviction, as they consider implementation of the quality management practices to be a daunting and expensive prospect, with high on-going operational costs.

However, based upon current production system of manufacturing SME, implementation of a quality management system could be low cost and low maintenance with little documentation needed [11]. Also, ownersmanagers of Indian SMEs often do not have enough managerial insights and organizational capabilities resulting in misapplication of TQM practices [10], which may result in product quality failure and increased expenditure. According to a research study considering manufacturing SMEs in United Kingdom as sample, the success rate of quality management implementation in SMEs was found to be low since it reaches only 10% [12].