A review on critical success factors for total productive maintenance and development of research framework

Abstract

Total productive maintenance (TPM) is holistic maintenance management approach aimed at improving the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of the machine or equipment. It integrates the role of maintenance and production department of a company to share responsibility in taking care the production equipment. Its strong emphasis is on inculcating the sense of sharing responsibility and empowering operators to maintain their production equipment. In the right environment, TPM implementation would make significant contribution to company’s profitability particularly in increasing the production efficiency, improving the product quality, lowering operating cost, timely delivery to customers, ensuring the safety of the workplace and enhancing the morale of employees. However, the literature portrays that many of companies are struggling and found themselves either failed right at the start-up or during the process of TPM implementation. In view of the significant impact from TPM methodology, it is clear that there is a need to formulate a set of comprehensive guidance towards the success of its implementation. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss the critical success factors (CSFs) of TPM and to develop research framework for systematic TPM implementation. The study adopts comprehensive literature reviews from numerous published sources such as journals, books, websites, magazines and unpublished thesis. It focuses on the understanding of the concept of TPM and maintenance management, the concept of CSFs approach, the growing importance of TPM and its significance role in supporting domestic industry development. This paper contends that the company’ business performance will surely improve if the concepts outlined in CSFs of TPM be adopted and adapted. From this brief discussion, the author invites for other ideas as part of continual improvement on the proposed research framework to assess TPM implementation in Malaysian companies.