Resumo:
Nowadays the enterprises are continuously trying to adapt themselves to the customers
requirements, the norms and regulations to be competitive, as well as keeping attentive to the
technological and organizational innovations. Then, the continuous improvement activities
that have consecrated themselves as one of the most efficient forms of elevating a enterprise
competitiveness, whose performance is related to this enterprise capacity in managing its
traditional processes of developing, selling, manufacturing and distributing products, appear.
Therefore, this dissertation objective is to evaluate the relation between the continuous
improvement stages considered by Bessant et al.(2001) and the standard of measurement
performance. In order to this, studies of case have been selected and accomplished in
rectilinear knitting industries of Monte Sião. In these studies a relation between the standard
of measurement performance and the continuous improvement stages was been identified.
The limitation was the relation between the pro-active stages and total capacity, because
knitting industries fitted in these levels were not identified. It was verified that the existence
time of the enterprises took into cosideration, in spite of bringing experiences, did not
demonstrate to be a factor that influences in the evolution of the continuous improvement
levels. In case of “Primart” knitting industry , classified as a guided improvement industry, it
was identified that its high purchasing power customers, with more than ten years of
relationship with the firm, demand differentiated high-quality products. As such, this fact
suggests that the evolution of the continuous improvement levels is dependent of the market
requirements unfolded in the standard measurement performance, or either, congruentes with
the competitive strategy. One noticed also that the continuous improvement depends of the
culture, the organization infrastructure, as well as of the entrepreneur’s performance as main
agent of the implementation. It is worth it to improvement levels to remember that the results
can contribute to the implementation and evolution of continuous improvement levels
considered by Bessant et al.(2001), therefore it identifies the necessary characteristics of the
standard measurement performance, guiding the entrepreneurs to future reorganizations inside
their respective industries, always aiming at to getting the best level of possible continuous
improvement.
