Manufacturing best practices in Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current level of best manufacturing practices in Malaysian ISO 9000 certified small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a survey on 270 ISO 9000 certified manufacturing SMEs. Based on an extensive search of literature on performance requirements, eight areas were identified. Thus, the questionnaire was designed consisting of the eight areas which are management, human resources development (HRD), technology and product innovation, marketing strategy, quality, production process, supply chain management (SCM) and customer focus. Data were analysed using the SPSS software.Findings – The results showed that among the eight areas, customer focus is the most implemented area with the highest mean of 4.16, followed by quality (3.92), management (3.78), SCM (3.56), HRD (3.27), marketing strategy (3.05), production process (3.02) and technology and product innovation with a score of 2.95. The results showed tha...

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