Total Productive Maintenance: Competing or Complementary to other Initiatives?

Abstract

The objective of this short review paper is to examine the practical applications of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) in the manufacturing industry. In this short review, an attempt was made to critically discuss the previous literatures related to TPM with the other established quality initiatives in the manufacturing, such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just-In-Time practice (JIT). This literature review-based research revealed an important research gaps related to TPM. The significance role of TPM as an important complementary to either TQM or JIT initiative is observed not been well addressed in the available literatures. Most of the researches available investigate these initiatives separately, focuses on the other element rather than addressing on the significant role of TPM as one of the main thrust. The separate implementation of such quality initiatives in the manufacturing organization means the requirement of large scale human, financial and technical resources as well the associated problems of running competing project in the company. The outcomes from this review justify the needs of further research in the area of TPM integration with other available initiatives, to further enhance its methodology aimed at solidifying its philosophy towards more realistic practical applications.