Are small manufacturers failing the quality test?
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Pages | 76-80 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570010319701 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | Robert D. Gulbro,Linda Shonesy,Paul Dreyfus |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Are small manufacturers failing the quality test?
Robert D. Gulbro
Athens State University, Alabama, USA
Linda Shonesy
Athens State University, Alabama, USA
Paul Dreyfus
Athens State University, Alabama, USA
Introduction
The economic environment that firms are
currently operating in is characterized by
rapid changes brought on by globalization
and market deregulation. To compete, firms
must improve performance by decreasing
costs and increasing quality. However,
attaining high quality products has been a
problem for US firms in the past. Japanese
firms were able to take market share because
of their higher quality in such manufactured
products as automobiles, television sets, and
other electronic items. US manufacturers
tended to ignore the potential of quality
management until the 1970s, when the
realization that quality was important to
consumers could no longer be ignored.
To attain a more consistently high quality
product, firms in the past 20 years have made
a concerted effort to implement continuous
improvement processes. It began in the
manufacturing sector and has spread to other
types of organizations, such as health care,
service firms, and government agencies
(Brown, 1991; Cohen and Brand, 1993). These
continuous process improvement concepts
leading to quality products include planning,
training,management commitment,statistical
process control, empowerment, and teamwork
(Deming, 1986; Juran, 1989; Crosby, 1984;
Taguchi and Clausing, 1990; and Camp, 1989).
In order to survive, all firms must develop
their own set of efficiency niches (Das and
Husain, 1993). It is generally agreed that
smaller firms have a difficult time competing
directly with larger firms, because larger
firms can achieve economies of scale. Since
quality efforts could add to either variable or
fixed costs,smaller firms mayhave to limit the
amount of value that can be added by
increasing quality. On the other hand, in order
to compete with their larger counterparts,
small firms may be forced to attain the same
product quality levels. That may require
bringing all of their resources to bear on
maximizing quality efforts. That especially
includes using their employees to help achieve
higher quality products. What are small firms
actually doing to achieve quality products? Do
small firms actually make adequate use of
quality methods and activities in the current
push for continuous improvement? Are larger
firms better able to leverage their plant and
equipment, thus achieving higher quality
products and services?
The purpose of this research was to focus
on manufacturing firms and their continuous
improvement processes, and how that may
vary with firm size. The variables were ten
questions focused on continuous
improvement activities. These were
compared in large, medium, and small firms
to seek a solution to the question: Do firms of
different size vary in their implementation
and use of continuous improvement methods
and activities to achieve product quality?
Literature review
According to Black andPorter (1996), much of
the quality managementliterature is based on
case studies and anecdotal evidence by using
the reflections of the various experts in the
discipline, including Deming, Juran, Crosby,
Feigenbaum, and Ishikawa. Much of the
literature focuses on describing common
management practices with few attempts to
identify those that will impact the continuous
improvement processes based on firm size.
Dean and Bowen (1994) decided that the
total quality process for improving quality is
a relatively fuzzy concept. Ahire and Golhar
(1996) stated that the existing TQM literature
does not provide detailed comparisons
between large and small firms. Implementing
quality activities and improving quality
appears to be difficult, with specific problems
that are encountered by small firms.
Sironopolis (1994) found that small firms did
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[ 76 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
100/2 [2000] 76±80
#MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-5577]
Keywords
Manufacturing, Quality,
Continuous improvement,
Small firms
Abstract
Several manufacturing firms were
surveyed to find answers to ques-
tions about their manufacturing
quality, and to determine what
activities they were using in
achieving quality products. Firms
of all sizes were queried and
smaller firms were compared to
larger firms. Attempts at finding
significant differences between
small and large firms were suc-
cessful. The responses of the
larger firms demonstrated that
significant differences exist when
compared to the smaller firms in a
variety of continuous improvement
activities that are a part of the
process used to achieve higher
levels of quality.
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