Productivity Improvement Measures and Performance of SMEs

ISO was found most significant measure as it had appreciably affected all the parameters except inventory level of finished goods, R&D activity, lead time of R&D, total production cost, cost due to customer complaints and cost due to rework. Quality Circles was found the second most important measure as it had significant impact on inventory levels of raw materials, R&D activity, lead time of R&D, total production cost, cost due to customer complaints, cost due to rework/re-inspection, and performance of the suppliers. 5S, suggestion schemes and workers participation were found least significant measures as these measures had affected only a few parameters. JIT was found the most insignificant measures. This is because of unstable demand, lack of proper training of employees to implement JIT. Moreover the small firms are owner managed and they try to implement the measures within their own constraints and not according to the requirement of the measures The firms, which have implemented multiple productivity improvement measures, had performed better than those having single measure. These firms had better understanding of the importance of management