Issues & Challenges of Quality Management faced by MSMEs

With the increase in quality consciousness and expectations of the customers around
the world, Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) in India are also trying to
keep-up with them by improving the quality of their products. This paper is an
assessment of quality practices, issues and challenges of MSMEs of Kanpur, India.
The focus of the study is to identify the quality readiness of these MSMEs, their
contribution to export, the strategic advantages and disadvantages faced by MSME in
export. A study was conducted on export oriented leather, plastics and chemical
industries of Uttar-Pradesh (India) which was presented at the end of the paper as a
case study so as to understand the current quality management practices of these
industries.