A Study Of Best Practices Principles Among Job Shop Manufacturing Smes In Malaysia

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises, the main Malaysian economic contributor are struggling to identify the best practice compatible with their environment. Despite lots of previous research suggest that appropriate best practice procedures are contingent upon company type, none of this research has tried to develop a principle or model for this sector. This paper tries to prescribe the factors which pertinent to the best practices among Malaysian job-shop manufacturing SMEs based on a mix-model approaches and Rasch analysis. The research began with qualitative approach, where selected SMEs being approached in Kedah and Terengganu together with an intensive desk research. The outcome of this part is used to develop the questionnaire for the quantitative part. The respondent for the quantitative part came from Job-shop type manufacturing SMEs throughout Peninsular Malaysia. Data from quantitative part was analysed using PASW 18 software (normal statistic approach) and Winsteps (Rasch model approach).