The implementation of world classmanufacturing techniques in Egyptian manufacturing firms

Purpose – The purposes of this paper are to illustrate how the world class manufacturing (WCM) techniques which could be described as outperforming the industry’s global best practices have been implemented in the Egyptian manufacturing firms, to identify the critical driving and resisting forces toward WCM techniques implementation in Egyptian manufacturing firms, and to provide guidelines for the successful implementation of WCM by Egyptian manufacturers. Design/methodology/approach – The data analyzed in this study are collected from a mail questionnaire sent to 200 manufacturing firms in Egypt. Findings – The findings of this study indicate that the Egyptian manufacturers are still in the 1970s and 1980s, when compared with world-class manufacturers. The most important variables that promote the implementation of WCM techniques are “reduced operating costs (marketing and production) ” and “global issues (environment-market). ” More importantly, the results of this study indicate that poor planning and lack of knowledge are the most significant barriers to WCM implementation in the Egyptian manufacturing sector. Research limitations/implications – There is a need to empirically explore the benefits of WC