توصیف قابلیت دوام شرکت های تولیدی کوچک (شرکتهای کوچک و متوسط) در بازار

This paper examines characteristics of survived small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) competing to be suppliers to mass merchandisers. It intends to examine various product and management characteristics of small manufacturing enterprises (SME) to determine the critical factors that lead to their long-term survival. Since survey data are usually correlated, fuzzy, inconsistent, and incomplete, we used the adaptive learning network (ALN), an artificial intelligence (AI) technique to build the model. The ALN is non-parametric and known to be much better than multivariate statistical approaches in handling survey data. A sample of over 1600 firms was analyzed in this study to determine the primary factors that are attributable to long-term survival of SMEs and their influences.

Small manufacturing enterprises (SME) have significant intangible assets but typically have limited capital and other resources to support their manufacturing and marketing. In addition, their product market is constantly changing and globalizing so that their competency in getting and managing scarce resources becomes critical to their survival. In spite of these limitations, small business failure rate appears to be lower than previously thought. Headd (2003) reported that over half of small firms with employees remained in business after four years and that surviving firms were likely to have paid employees, adequate start-up capital ($50,000 or more), and experienced owners. He stressed, however, that many firms lacking these and other “success” qualities did not necessarily fail. Often their owners still described their venture as a success even after closure because it allowed the owners to be independent, to earn extra income at a crucial time, or to successfully sell the business as part of an exit strategy. Headd’s work involved examining firms survived for four years, and also calls into question the meaning of survival of the SMEs. Our study examined firms that survived over an eight to ten year period since a long-term survival of the SMEs is an important criterion for success. This paper examines characteristics of survived small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) competing to be suppliers to mass merchandisers. It examines various product and management characteristics of small manufacturing enterprises (SME) to determine the critical factors that lead to their long-term survival. Since survey data are usually correlated, fuzzy, inconsistent, and incomplete, we used the Adaptive Learning Network (ALN), an artificial intelligence (AI) technique to process these survey data. The ALN approach is non-parametric and known to be much better than multivariate statistical approaches in handling survey data. Using an artificial intelligence approach, we attempt to determine the factors that are attributable to long-term survival of SMEs and their degree of influences. In the following, literature review on successful small manufacturers is presented and the Adaptive Learning Network (ALN) is discussed. The data description and model development are also presented, followed by the empirical results and discussion.

This study finds that firms that use viable organizations to create and market products appealing to the customer are those that are also more likely to survive over a longer period of time. While a long-term survival is not the only measure of the success of a small manufacturing firm, survived firms encompass other well-known success measures such as sales performance and profitability. The findings that viable SMEs produce quality products with a longer product life cycle at a competitive price, also support clearly the success measures known in the literature. The final ALN model also selected FAR 29 (Cash Flow) variable as a critical factor. Since SMEs are known to have very limited financial resources and capabilities (Kim et al., Forthcoming) and, therefore, must have detailed and sophisticated financial planning in order to survive over a long time. The findings in this research are fundamental and applied not only to the SMEs wishing to enter the mass retail arena but also to all small manufacturers. Although nothing is certain in a dynamic marketplace, these finding clearly provide ways of developing a strategy for a long-term survival.