Supply Chain Improvement Approaches and Performance in Large Scale Manufacturing Firms in Nairobi County

Abstract

The objective of the study was three fold: to determine improvement approaches followed by large scale manufacturing firms, to evaluate the effects of supply chain improvement approaches on performance and establish possible challenges faced by large scale manufacturing firms in implementation of improvement approaches. Data was unruffled using questionnaires and evaluated by means of frequencies and mean tools, where the response rate was 87.6%. The findings indicated that a strong relationship of various SC improvement approaches as adopted by large scale manufacturing firms has a strong positive impact on Supply Chain performance. Companies adopted lean systems, Kaizen, IT, business process re-engineering, were more efficient and effective. However, although the SC have contributed significantly to the firms performance, more needs to be done to invest in IT and infrastructure to improve the quality of goods and cut down on costs; and also training of staff to improve their productivity. The study established that supply chain management stresses on all aspects of providing products and services to consumers. The research established that BPR, IT, Benchmarking, Lean manufacturing and Kaizen would be considered in making sure that performance is achieved.