Production management model under the knowledge management approach to increase labor productivity in the sewing area of a garment production SME

One of the main problems in SMEs is low human productivity, which may be attributed to the fact that many companies focus more on production and less on their human talent. That is to say, they do not give priority to the practice of knowledge management within their production chain. Therefore, a production management model is required to integrate the key elements for their efficient development. On the basis of this, a production management model was designed for this study and was focused on knowledge management in a garment production SME to achieve favorable results, both in the organization’s performance and in workers’ labor productivity. To validate the model, this case study was carried out at a clothing production microenterprise located in Gamarra, where low labor productivity was identified as the main problem, and one of the most affected areas was sewing. Labor productivity increased after implementing the model—in other words, each worker went from producing eight garments per hour to 12.