This section examines the issues that manufacturing SMEs face with regard to barriers when trying to improve their business. For any business to be totally successful, these problems will have to be resolved. The aim of this section is to ensure that the framework being developed in this thesis will not fall victim to such reported barriers.
Table 2.2 shows how publications over the last 30 years have looked at the process of continuous improvement within businesses, identifying barriers of uptake, how knowledge management can help and the identification of business waste.
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Table 2.2: Authors who have identified CI techniques, barriers, knowledge management and waste
Reference Continuous
Improvement Techniques
Barriers KM Waste
Dywer and Copland (2007) Y Y Y
Gertsen (2001) Y Hall (1993) Y Y Heard (1997) Y Y Harris (1994) Y Hyland et al. (1999) Y Y Garcia-Lorenzo (2000) Y Y McAdam (2000) Y McQuarter et al. (1995) Y
Miller and Casavant (1994) Y Y
Brooks (1994) Y
Lu (2010) Y
MacBryde (2012) Y
Lilja (2009) Y
Amar and Zain (2002 Y Y
Beskese and Gebeci (2001) Y Y
Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009)
Arona (1992) Y
Chawla and Joshi (2010) Y
Chua (2009) Y
De long and Fahey (2000) Y Y
Zhou et al. (2014) Y
Bice (1986), who has done research examining continuous improvement methods, informs us that company-wide failure prevention must begin with management controls funding and policy. This is where the first major obstacle occurs because convincing the management to fully commit to a preventive- driven programme requires management understanding, conviction, commitment, discipline, willingness, development, establishment, exercise and investment. The absence of these will create barriers.
Dwyer and Copeland (2007) suggest that one particular major automotive manufacturer supplier is over-reliant on continuous improvement tools and that
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it does not fully understand them. Moreover, the company has little idea what continuous improvement really means. Dwyer and Copeland (2007) see much waste being generated within the processes and money being poured down the drain every week. The impression is that many suppliers are frightened to really get to grips with the real meaning of continuous improvement within their business.
Amar and Zain (2002) have identified how a complete lack of management commitment, weak quality management, an inability to change, a lack of accuracy in quality planning, the absence of training and insufficient resources can prevent improvement projects in a business environment.
Bhat and Rajashekhar (2009) have studied barriers to TQM in Indian industries that want to improve. They identified the following barriers: culture and employees, infrastructure, management and organisational issues.
Arvelo’s (1995) research on continuous improvement found that it is a technique that helps eliminate non-value added activities; however, this cannot be possible without either management involvement or commitment or without the use of valuable resources.
McQuarter et al. (1995) have identified the following pitfalls that can cause difficulties when using quality tools: poorly designed training, being unable to apply what has been learnt, inappropriate use of tools, resistance to using tools, a failure to lead by example, poor measurement and poor communication.
For Gatchallan (1997), the following barriers can halt a TQM project and prevent success: resistance by top management, erratic quality programme implementation, jolting but unsustainable enthusiasm for TQM, inadequate empowerment, poor communication and lack of teamwork.
Harrington (1998) has conducted research into performance improvement within a business environment. He found that the manager’s role has to change: the major roadblocks that are put in the way of the employees must be removed before their full potential can be unleashed. Harrington (1998) identifies roadblocks that cause barriers as a lack of employee trust, a lack of delegation, a lack of management credibility, untimely decision making, a lack of training,
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misdirected measurement systems, poor communication, a lack of employee loyalty, fear of risk taking and a lack of continuity. The manager must support the process of improvement to avoid such problems.
Kruger (2001) has studied the work conducted by Deming, stating that it is important to drive out fear that many workers have of asking questions of their supervisors even when they do not understand their task properly and do not know what is right from wrong. They need to break down the barriers between staff, most importantly, the barriers that hinder the hourly paid workers.
Oakland and Tanner (2007) have identified some common barriers, which include a constant changing of departments, a lack of communication, resistance to change and little management involvement. In their research, they found that companies that encountered these problems often engage external consultants to do the work for them.
Table 2.3 shows the percentages reported by academics of the most common reasons that cause problems for manufacturing SMEs when they want to improve their business.
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Table 2.3: Barriers to SME progress identified by academics by percentage
Barrier Percentage
Lack of Management Commitment 90
Employee Resistance 50 Insufficient Resources 40 Poor Training 40 Poor Communication 40 Lack of Understanding in CI 35 Poor Teamwork 15 Fear of change 15 Lack of Infrastructure 10 Organisational Issues 10 Poor Planning 10
Weak Quality Management 5
Lack of Quality Planning 5
Lack of Culture 5
Inappropriate Tools Used 5
Inadequate Empowerment 5
Lack of Time for CI 5
CI techniques are used in a business environment to improve the performance of a process within that business; it is, however, important to understand the definition of what a process is.