Why Indian manufacturing SMEs are still reluctant in adopting total quality management

Abstract

Total quality management (TQM) is an effective concept for improving the organisational performance of the manufacturing industries. Implementing TQM has become an essential business culture and a key survival tool for all manufacturing industries. TQM has been adopted by most of the large manufacturing industries, but small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing sector of India are still reluctant to adopt TQM, though SMEs are the backbone of Indian economy. So, understanding the problems/difficulties of Indian manufacturing SMEs in implementing TQM has become very important. After thoroughly reviewing the literature and interviewing the management and quality teams of a number of Indian manufacturing SMEs, the authors identified their weaknesses/difficulties in adopting TQM, arranged them in order of their importance and recommended guidelines to overcome those difficulties, which will definitely contribute to successful implementation of TQM by manufacturing SMEs in India and other developing countries, for improving their organisational performance.