Quality Management Practices vs. Performance of SMEs: An Empirical Study of Indian Industries

The intense competition in the current marketplace has forced firms to re-examine their methods of doing business. Economic liberalization and globalization of economy is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. However survival of industry and its economic growth is dependant on the productivity level. This is very true in developing countries like India because of higher population growth, higher interest rates, rising inflation, domestic and international competition, scarcity of raw materials, fiscal deficit etc. The present work is an empirical study of impact of quality management practices like just-in-time, 5S's tools, suggestion schemes, workers participation, quality circles and ISO certification on performance of SMEs. The performance parameters incorporated for the study were manpower and assets utilization, inventory management, quality aspects, cost aspects, time performance and purchasing procedure. A comprehensive questionnaire was developed and circulated to the different firms and responses were collected for analyzing the data. On the basis of literature review and the survey of the industry, objectives were identified; the impact was validated on the basis of correlation analysis