Assessment of the reasons for failure and critical success factors implementing CI projects: Case study results from the South African Apparel and Manufacturing industry

Abstract

Utilizing case studies the paper investigates the reasons for the failure of Continuous Improvement (CI) projects in the South African Apparel and Manufacturing industries. There is an ever-increasing disquiet about implementation malfunctions in industry and the reason for the failures. During the 20th century, a plethora of quick fix CI methodologies were introduced. Management of organizations implements improvements without understanding the underlying principles of the improvement methodologies they attempted to implement. It occurred due to a lack of effective implementation guidelines that management could utilize. Management expects processes to miraculously transform through implementation of a particular methodology or set of methodologies. Management erroneously believed that CI projects would succeed without their active participation. Notwithstanding the failure of CI projects, a need for improvement of processes still exists in the 21st century. There are various reasons why the improvements methodologies might fail. The authors identified the most common reason for the failure of CI projects in the South African context. As a result the authors endeavored to identify the critical success factors that would assist in a successful implementation of CI projects in South Africa.