Design of a quality development model for South African small manufacturers: a capability maturity perspective

Abstract

Implementing a quality management system often requires major alterations to an organisation's methods, processes, and cultures, requiring significant resource commitment and expert consultation. Consequently, and more often than not, small manufacturing organisations operate without a structured quality management system. In response, this research project sets the focus on quality management in an attempt to provide a solution to a real-world opportunity in the form of a quality management gap in the management methodology of small manufacturers. The research is conducted in a Design Science Research paradigm that delves into general quality management theory, the ISO 9001 standard for quality management systems. It also explores the characteristics of the total quality management philosophy as applied to a manufacturing operational environment. The result of this was a manufacturing-oriented framework for total quality management that was utilised in an industry survey to define a cross-sectional view of quality management among South African small manufacturers, which provided real-world context to the problem statement and allowed for practical orientation of the research design process.

As a proposed solution, this research project explored the Capability Maturity Model as a solution to make quality management more accessible and of systemic value to manufacturing SMEs. The approach was verified by ensuring that the model would instil the desired total quality management characteristic if implemented in a manufacturing context. Furthermore, the validation mechanism relied on a cross-comparative literature analysis between the Capability Maturity Model and ISO 9001, as a globally recognised standard for quality management capability and one of the most prominent quality management paradigms among South African organisations. The primary contribution of the project details an engineering management model designed to suit the needs and constraints of manufacturing SMEs. Furthermore, concluding that the Capability Maturity approach offers a quantitative perspective to the implementation of quality management, meaning that quality can be approached as a measurable attribute of the organisation.