Negative Impact of Manual Manufacturing on Small to Medium Manufacturing Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review

Manual/traditional manufacturing methods have been highly deployed by manufacturing organisations. Small to Medium Manufacturing Enterprises (SMMEs), in particular, have been dependent on manual manufacturing due to the nature of their size and financial constraints. Manual manufacturing methods deployments have favoured SMMEs owing to their low-cost tasks and ease of changing the processes and systems. However, its deployment has been challenged by factors such as slow processing, longer production lead-time, production planning and execution errors, limited flexibility and scalability, miss-shipping of products ordered by the customers, product shipment delay, inefficient order fulfilment, inefficient inventory control which result into holding of stockout, difficulty to adapt to new market conditions and demands, operational inefficiency and high labour cost. Hence, this study discusses in detail the negative impacts of the usage of manual manufacturing methods on SMMEs, with a focal point on manual production and supply chain processes, and their impacts on the throughput and operational efficiency of SMMEs. Part of the conclusions generated from the study emphasized the need to shift away from traditional/manual manufacturing methods to cost-effective smart manufacturing methods.