Quality Management As Essential Tool For Competitiveness Of Metal Mechanical Branch State Southeast Coahuila La Gestion De Calidad Como Herramienta Esencial Para La Competitividad De Las Empresas De La Rama Metal Mecanica Del Sureste Del Estado De Coahuila

MSMEs provide a number of advantages that make them important to the economy of México, but also suffer from internal and external factors that limit their competitiveness. One of these internal factor, which is controllable by the company, is quality management. The objective of this research is to identify and analyze factors that influence the quality management of enterprises mechanical metal, one of the main economic activities for the automotive cluster, from the southeast region of the State of Coahuila, México. To achieve this, we designed a measuring instrument with Likert scaling, semantic differential and dichotomic questions. The instrument considers variables of corporate governance or strategic behavior, competitiveness, technology, innovation and quality. The survey was applied to 30 managers or owners of micro and small enterprises. The research is exploratory, descriptive, nonexperimental and the temporality of the collection of the study data is transactional or transversal. The main hypothesis raised is that innovation, quality and enterprise management, limit metalmechanic MSMEs for providing of large companies in the automaker cluster in Coahuila. Some results show that in terms of product quality as a success factor, 55% of entrepreneurs said it is essential, 39% said extremely important and 6% reported regulating importance. One of the main discoveries of the study is that only 23% are certified in quality processes, 29% said they are not certified, but being in the process and 48% reported not having quality certification, or being in the process. Regarding innovation in the process, 72% said carry out and 28% did not. In product innovation 80% said practice and 20% did not, while in management innovation respondents reported 58% exercise. Employers believe that quality management is essential and unavoidable to achieve competitiveness. So there is an excellent opportunity to promote models of quality assurance and innovation for enterprise management.