Large firms versus small firms ‐ do they implement CI the same way?

Abstract

An Australia‐wide study of continuous improvement (CI) in manufacturing was initiated in 1996/97 by conducting a benchmarking survey examining the CI activities of medium to large manufacturing firms. While most larger firms have an awareness of CI and many are actively implementing CI throughout their organisations, anecdotal evidence suggests that considerably less activity is occurring in the small‐to‐medium enterprise (SME) sector. Given the significant contribution of the SME sector to Australia’s GDP and international competitiveness, and the importance of CI to all firms regardless of size or industry, a sample of small‐ to medium‐size firms in New South Wales were surveyed about their CI activities. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of the findings of these two surveys and examines the firms’ main motives for CI, content in the CI process, support for CI, the usage of problem‐solving tools within CI process, and their general maturity level of CI. The comparison suggests that many motives for CI and the general content of the CI process are quite similar for both large and small firms. However, significant differences occur between the two when comparing CI support methods, and the use of problem‐solving tools within the CI process.

Citation

Chapman, R.L. and Sloan, T.R. (1999), "Large firms versus small firms ‐ do they implement CI the same way?", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 105-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544789910370680