Sustainable production adoption by Surface Treatment SMES

The adoption to sustainable production is a continuous but necessary strive for manufacturing operations, including small and medium enterprises, SMEs. Meeting the future needs of the economic, social and environmental dimensions provides challenges for SMEs. In order to meet these challenges, understanding of internal and external enablers is required. Studies focusing on the enablers for sustainability among SMEs are rare; hence these companies are important players in the supply chain to focal companies. In order to enhance the understanding of the adoption of sustainable production for the sector surface treatment SMEs, an exploratory study has been conducted. In this study, the focus has been placed in the identification and analysis of the challenges and enablers for adoption of sustainable production. Two stages of empirical data collection were undertaken: a focus group session and an online questionnaire. The findings present challenges based on the limitations of the surface treatment process but also where enablers for the social, economic and environmental for meeting those challenges are interrelated. The results showed that these SMEs face challenges in their way towards sustainable production, mainly due to: low economic profitability, need for improvement in old working procedures, lack of fully understanding regarding environmental legislation, difficulty in ensuring workforce, lack of technology development and resistance towards change. These challenges could be faced through internal and external enablers, where the support of large-size customers and other stakeholders is critical for this sector.