Understanding Obstacles to Change Towards Continuous Improvement Programs in Manufacturing Sector

Despite the benefits of continuous programs, most improvement programs start off with lot of energy and enthusiasm, but end in disappointment and failure. This study is concerned with the understanding the obstacles to continuous improvement programs in manufacturing sectors. It contributes to with the help of the existing knowledge to get an in-depth understanding of the issues, and the key factors to undermining it. This paper reports on the obstacles to continuous improvement. Further the obstacles are divided into technical, economic, managerial, organizational, and cultural factors. It was observed that despite the rapid growth and gains in the early phases of continuous improvement, long term results were unsatisfactory due to poor management of changes and organizational culture shift. This happens mainly due to lack to strategic dissemination at all levels of management/by the attitude of the middle and lower level management to change.