Linking manufacturing improvement programs to the competitive priorities of Canadian SMEs

The capacity of small manufacturing firms to maintain reliable and continuously improving manufacturing processes appears to be a key condition for ensuring long-term sustainability. Governments have been very active in helping them tackle this challenge, in particular by supporting the adoption of world-class manufacturing practices. Despite the many benefits of this support, its application is not always based on exhaustive knowledge of the target firms. Programs aimed at the wholesale promotion of technology, without reference to the competitiveness orientations of the firms concerned, can produce unsatisfactory results. The study described here examines this issue based on a survey of 229 small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) having received assistance under such a program. Four separate positioning profiles emerge from the study, namely potential practices, emergent practices, priority practices and realized practices. The study also provides a way to associate manufacturing improvement programs and practices with the competitive positioning sought by SMEs. The results of the research should be extremely useful to business assistance programs and to corporate decision-makers.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.