Continuous Quality Improvement Strategies for the SMEs

Today it is estimated that 70% of the contributions to the economic growth is attributed to the small to medium enterprises. This could be much more if the small enterprises would encompass quality management as a competitive advantage. Yet today the Zimbabwe small enterprises sector is in the decline and the Zimbabwe market shuns local products. Is there anything wrong with locally manufactured products? One may ask! In the past quality was simply related to higher prices but as the business environment changed complexion ,today customers can obtain high quality at relatively low price. As SMEs gear themselves towards adopting cost effective methods of production of goods and services, this automatically means the cost of quality has gone down. Another driving factor is the issue of competition that has been so stiff and this in turn has forced SMEs to view quality as a competitive weapon for strategically positioning themselves.

Autorentext

Oliver Chimusoro is an Industrial Engineer with the Department of Infrastructure Development, Gauteng Provincial Government, RSA. He is studying towards a PhD in Industrial Engineering in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Stellenbosch University, RSA. His research interest is in Operaions Management.