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The purpose of the current study is to develop a multidimensional scale to measure Employees' Service Quality (ESQ) in Indian small and medium manufacturing enterprises. 144 executives working at top/middle level in different small-medium manufacturing units of north India responded to a questionnaire survey. The respondents were asked to assess the service quality being delivered by shop-floor employees of their respective units on the perception scale. Construct validation using exploratory factor analysis showed an interpretable latent structure consisting of five dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis developed a valid and reliable service quality measurement scale with 4 dimensions and 13 items. It was observed that service quality delivered by the employees in small-medium manufacturing units comprises four dimensions, viz., dependability, agility, professionalism and understanding. The scale developed in this study can be used by manufacturing units in the identification of opportunities for improvements in employees' service quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to review 28 popular service quality models in the light of ever changing industrial scenario and analyze them for suitability/need for modifications in the context of small-medium manufacturing units. The study is of immense importance as it provides clear-cut information about the sequential evolution of various service quality measurement models bearing relevance to the manufacturing sector. The review of 28 service quality models evolved from 1984 to 2017 coupled with focus group discussion with academicians, industry professionals and SME consultants revealed that PZB's SERVQUAL model (using perception scale only) in conjunction with Carr's FAIRSERV model will be a befitting yardstick for evaluating service quality at various echelons in the supply chains of manufacturing units under study. The paper also provides a valuable insight into service quality measurement in a previously ignored sector--small and medium manufacturing units--and offers directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study is to develop a service quality scale by identifying the attributes of internal service quality delivered by small and medium manufacturing enterprises to their supplier units in order to ease their working and improve their delivery performance. 120 representatives from supplier units delivering materials and other supplies to small and medium manufacturing enterprises of North India responded to a questionnaire survey. Construct validation using exploratory factor analysis showed an interpretable latent structure consisting of four dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis developed a valid and reliable service quality measurement scale with 16 items. It was observed that service quality of manufacturing units working towards suppliers comprises four dimensions, viz., assurance, communication, alignment and responsiveness. Snowball sampling was undertaken for this research. The scale developed in this research can be used by managers of small and medium manufacturing units in identification of opportunities for assuring service excellence to their suppliers to facilitate their working and improve performance, thereby mutually benefitting both partners as well as the whole supply chain. This research provides a framework to researchers to build more service quality scales in similar situations so that more concrete generalizations can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lean manufacturing techniques are nowadays being utilized by diverse sectors of organizations both in manufacturing as well as service sectors so as to enhance their productivity and make them universally competitive. Interrelationship has been observed amongst the various consequential techniques/tools of lean manufacturing paradigm. It has been established by different researchers that lean manufacturing techniques do have commonality. In this paper, an endeavor has been made to empirically examine the commonality amongst the vital lean manufacturing techniques/tools. It has been observed that lean manufacturing techniques like Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), 5S and Supplier Partnership have paramount commonality among them. Moreover, Quality Management System (QMS), Kaizen and seven wastes (7W) reduction technique do additionally have consequential commonality. Furthermore, few other lean manufacturing techniques have been found to have moderate or low commonality. It is suggested that lean manufacturing techniques need to be implemented holistically for felicitous employment of the lean manufacturing paradigm to get optimum benefits of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work is an empirical study on the impact of quality management techniques, such as Just-In-Time (JIT), 5S's tools, suggestion schemes, workers participation, Quality Circles (QC) and ISO certification, on the performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The performance parameters considered in the study are human resource, inventory management, quality aspects and cost aspects. On the basis of preliminary survey and literature review, a comprehensive questionnaire was developed and circulated to different firms and the responses were collected for analyzing the data. The correlation was obtained between the quality/productivity management systems and the output parameters of firms. The impact of these on the output parameters was validated on the basis of correlation values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]