Abstract
Recently, product life-cycles are shortening faster than ever before, and companies with a suggestion system are in better position to overcome this shortening life-cycle and thus promote customer satisfaction. Suggestion systems, however, are not actively utilized on the production floors in many firms. This study showed that small-sized and medium-sized firms where a suggestion system is properly functioning by a strong will of top management are not many in Gangwon-do area. In considerable number of companies, a suggestion system is informally and spontaneously applied by the workers on the production floors not by company-wide systems. A suggestion system is required as a means of creating future value-added and it is a matter of course that the role of top management, together with middle-class managements' influence is quite important in the course of the successful application of it. A suggestion system, to be successful, calls not only individual efforts but also positive corporate cultures.