At The Time of Writing, All four authors, A. Gunasekaran, P. Okko, T. Martikainen, and p. Yli-oli were with the school of busines studes, University of Vaasa, Finland. In most cases small and medium enterprise prodcue their own product but at the same time they prodcue items for large-scale industries. These create certain interdependencies among SMEs and between them and large-scale industries in order to improve the competitiveness of SEMs in exporting. During recent year large-scale industries have undergone many changes in terms of prodcution concepts such as just-in-time and total-quality-managment and other technologies such as FMs, OPT and CIM with the objective of aligning their busienss, productivity and quality improvement strategies concepts and technologies which have not received adequate atention from SMEs. However, they can play an active role in the integration of various co-operating SMEs in the network and in improving prodcutivity and quality in SMEs. An attempt has been made in this paper to discuss the strategic for improving productivity and quality in SMEs, develop a suitable conceptual model for improving productivity and quality in two Finnish SMEs, taking into account advanced concepts and technologies and various forms of strategic alliances. in addition, a strategic framerwork is offered for improving productivity and quality in SMEs.
This paper deals with total quality management (TQM) with an emphasis on developing suitable strategies for improving quality and productivity in manufacturing systems. In recent years, TQM has been seen as an important strategy for achieving success in business both in terms of quality and productivity. However, there seem to be no clear strategic framework and guide‐lines for implementing TQM in manufacturing in the light of available advanced production concepts and technologies. A review of previous implementation approaches of TQM in practice has been presented in order to gain further insights into the implementation aspects of TQM. The main objective of this paper is to present a general framework for the development of TQM in manufacturing organizations considering the recent developments in production concepts and technologies and competitiveness among firms to utilize quality as a competitive weapon.
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