The Impact of World Class Manufacturing Practices on Company Performance: A Critical Review

This paper provides a critical analysis on the impact of world-class manufacturing practices on company performances in the manufacturing sector based on a survey conducted on various manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The result gathered was used to developatheoretical framework that will be used to investigate whether the quality, cost, delivery and flexibility may affect the performance of bottom line in these manufacturing companies. The theoretical framework is also formed based on a comprehensive review of existing manufacturing management literature to propose the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) Framework to achieve manufacturing excellence. It is a combination of these three approaches which offers complementary outputs, which form the basis for pursuing superior performance in manufacturing. This paper presents the WCM Framework and addresses the possible synergy of concurrent application of TQM, JIT and TPM. A discussion of the various practices used in the Framework provides not only guidance on how to implement the Framework, but also an instrument to measure the status of its implementation. It is expected that the concurrent application of TQM, JIT and TPM, via their accompanying practices, may bring about significant improvements in quality, cost, delivery and flexibility.