Abstract
M.Tech. (Operations Management)
This study focuses on furniture manufacturing SMMEs that are located in Gauteng province. The aim is to identify the impact that poor service quality has on SMMEs. For the study to achieve this, quality in furniture manufacturing SMMEs has been studied. The business improvement initiatives are reviewed in this study. This adopted a mixed method where questionnaires, observations, unstructured interviews and a case study were followed. The study is reliable; it shows a Cronbach Alpha of .849. the findings of the study indicate that the majority of the furniture manufacturing SMMEs does not have quality departments. A large number of these SMMEs did not implement quality initiatives in their SMMEs. The study discovered that they did not implement quality in their enterprises because they did not know about these quality initiatives. Regarding the implications of this study, a framework for improving quality in the furniture manufacturing SMMEs was developed and steps for rating service was introduced. A similar research must be undertaken in other sectors such as agriculture or hospitality so that the findings can be generalized.