Factors affecting project management of jig and fixture manufacturer in South Johor, Malaysia

Abstract

The economic growth in Malaysia has a number of benefits for downstream industries including jig and fixture manufacturers. The nature of jig and fixture manufacturer as small manufacturer enterprise (SME) with relatively less resource less focus on the importance of factors that affecting project management. Therefore, this research aims to identify the important factors that affect jig and fixture project management and to assess the degree of project management performance in a jig and fixture manufacturer, with the focus on South Johor region. In addition, the research also aims to obtain the correlation between factors affecting project management and project management performance, as well as to develop a prediction model for project management performance. In line with this, a quantitative approach was chosen with the population consisted of all jig and fixture manufacturers in South Johor, Malaysia. Simple random probability sampling was used to include 53 jig and fixture manufacturers. Data were collected through self administered questionnaires. Descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis was used. Findings from the study revealed that factor that perceived as important by respondents are human factor, followed by financial, organizational, technological supply chain relationship and physical factor. In term correlation, all factors were positively correlated with project management performance except human factor where regression model suggested that two strongest predictor are technological and supply chain relationship factor. Finding from the study suggested that factor that perceived as the most important is not correlated with project management performance, and the two strong predictors were perceived at medium important level. As such, further study could be conducted to study the implementation of those factors to identify the top of importance level, the effectiveness of the implementation, the focus level of the implementation and at once analyze the challenges and problem thus obtains the remedial strategies.