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Study of success factors of TPM implementation in Indian industry towards

operational excellence: An overview

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DOI: 10.1109/IEOM.2015.7093740

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 Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), March 3 – 5, 2015
Study of success factors of TPM implementation in
indian industry towards operational excellence:
An overview
Pardeep Gupta, Sachit Vardhan, Md Shazli Al Haque
Mechanical Engineering Department
Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology, Longowal, Sangrur (Punjab), India
pardeepmech@yahoo.co.in
Abstract - Presently the manufactures are facing a great
pressure to reduce cost of manufacturing and provide new and
quality products in the market on a regular basis. The India’s
manufacturing sector is striving hard towards operational
excellence. Reduction of waste, improvement of quality, higher
through put and overall more efficient production system is
leading India towards a manufacturing revolution. A good
number of companies have started implementing a range of
business strategies including going lean, and using
manufacturing strategies such as TPM, TQM, Six Sigma, JIT etc.
to obtain operational excellence. Total Productive Maintenance
(TPM) refers to a management system for optimizing the
productivity of manufacturing equipment. A study to evaluate
the implementation aspects and success factors of TPM initiatives
taken by Indian industry for achieving manufacturing excellence
is carried out and presented in this paper. There remained
considerable improvement in the morale of employees, skill level
of employees, technological up-gradation, machine conditions,
and customer satisfaction level after TPM. Also the industries
remained successful in improving their overall equipment
effectiveness (OEE) up to 30% and some of them achieved the
world class level of 95% OEE.
Keywords—Total Productive Maintenance, Operational
Excellence, Manufacturing strategies
I. INTRODUCTION
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) philosophy
comprises a systematic methodology that aims to challenge
the organization by changing the thinking style of people
within the organization. It is a philosophy of prevention that
advocates participation by all and envisages on organization
that is transformed into a learning workplace where people
derive through daily improvement. TPM is in fact a
maintenance philosophy designed to integrate equipment
maintenance into the manufacturing process. There are
number of companies in India that have implemented the TPM
in their plants and obtained the advantages in terms of cost,
quality, delivery, reliability and flexibility in the production
systems. TPM cannot be implemented overnight, normally it
takes at least two or three years to set an effective TPM
system in place in organizations. Successful implementation
of TPM requires consistent efforts of all the employees from
top management to shop floor operators.
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The literature review demonstrates that the implementation
of TPM is one of the business philosophies which is basically
used to improve the technological base by enhancing
equipment efficiency and improving the morale of employees
[1]. TPM implementation brings both production and
maintenance functions together after initiating good working
practices, team working and continuous improvement [5]. The
goal of TPM is to continually maintain, improve and
maximize the condition and effectiveness of equipment
through complete involvement of every employee from top
management to shop floor workers [7]. TPM initiatives in
production help in streamlining manufacturing and other
business functions, and gaining sustained profits [2]. The
challenges before Indian manufacturing industries in
implementing TPM initiatives got evaluated and thereby
suggested strategies for overcoming these challenges [3]. In
TPM, the ultimate aim is to achieve significantly reduced
breakdown levels [4]. The implementation of TPM
programme in an Indian automobile manufacturing industry
through a case study with a purpose to address practical
aspects and difficulties in the adoption of TPM is presented
[10]. The theoretical frame work for understanding the use of
TPM and how it depends on managerial factors such as JIT,
TQM and TEI as well as environmental and organizational
factors such as country and industry characteristics is
proposed [8]. The benefits achieved after implementing TPM
in industries have been well documented by a large number of
TPM researchers with the purpose to promote TPM in
industry.
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The aim of this paper is to study the TPM implementation
trend in Indian industry and to explore the chief achievements
and major success factors of the TPM awarded companies of
India. The information derived from annual TPM Club (India)
- News Letters and a well designed TPM questionnaire is used
to meet these objectives. The TPM questionnaire was sent to
more than 120 TPM awarded industries and in return the
feedback is obtained from a good number of respondents. The
feedback provided by industry is analyzed to investigate the
implementation aspects and success factors of TPM initiatives
taken by Indian industry for achieving manufacturing
excellence.
 III. TPM IN INDIAN INDUSTRIES
A detailed study of the news letters published by TPM Club
India is carried out to explore the TPM implementation trends
in India.
A. Trend of TPM Awards received by Indian Companies
Vikram cements was the first Indian company that initiated the
implementation of TPM in 1991 and got TPM Excellence
Award in 1995. Sundram Fasteners Ltd. was the first
engineering cmpany to win the TPM Excellence award in
1998. After a year, Tanfac Industries Ltd. obtained the TPM
excellence award in 1999. From 2000 to 2005, there remained
a phenomenal growth in receiving TPM awards by Indian
Companies but after that there was some decline till 2012 as
shown in figure 1.
B. Type of Industry Achieved TPM Awards
The TPM implementation is adopted by different types of
industries in India. Out of 156 award winning companies in
India, 88 companies belong to engineering industries, 66
companies are process industries and 2 companies belong to
service sector. This trend shows that the inclination of
engineering industries towards TPM is better than process and
service industries. So there is a need to motivate all types of
industries to implement TPM for improving their
manufacturing performances.
C. Special award winning companies:
Table I highlights the Indian industries which have
implemented the TPM in phases- Phase-I, Phase-II & Phase-
III to achieve manufacturing excellence, world class level and
business excellence respectively. Their TPM journey remained
successful in achieving the TPM awards on the successful
completion of the three phases.

TPM Award Winning Indian Companies Trend (Year wise)

35
30
30
26
25
21 20 20 20
20 18 18
16
15
11
10 9
4
5 3
1 1 1
0
1995 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Figure 1: Year-wise TPM Awards won by Indian Industry

TABLE I: JOURNAY OF SPECIAL AWARD WINNING COMPANIES

TPM PHASE-I TPM PHASE-II TPM PHASE-III

Sr.
Company Name Award for TPM Award for TPM Excellence
No
Excellence- First Category in Consistent TPM Special Award
Commitment- First Category
Brakes India Ltd., Foundry Division,
1 2003 2005 2007
Sholinghur
2 Brakes India Ltd., Brakes Division , Sholinghur 2003 2005 2008
3 Brakes India Ltd., Padi Plant 2003 2005 2007
4 Brakes India Ltd., Polambakkam 2004 2005 2010
5 Galaxy Surfactants Ltd., Taloja Plant 2003 --- 2007
6 Hindustan Lever Ltd., Khamgaon 2003 2005 2007
7 Shriram Pistons and Rings Ltd. 2004 --- 2007
8 Sundram Industries Ltd-Rubber Factory 2004 2006 2008
9 Sundram Fasteners Ltd., Hosur 1998 2005 2007
10 Sundram Fasteners Ltd., Krishnapuram 1998 2004 2008
11 Sundram Fasteners Ltd., Pondicherry 1998 2005 2007

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IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS IDENTIFIED FROM TPM
QUESTIONNAIRE
The TPM questionnaire with fifteen questions was sent to
more than 120 TPM awarded industries. The feedback
obtained from a good number of respondents is analyzed to
explore the reasons and facts which are appropriately
supporting the feedback findings, the discussion with TPM
managers/co-coordinators was held. The research findings of
the study and their countermeasures where ever necessary are
presented below:
A. Feedback and Research Findings of Questions 1 to 4
The questions numbered 1 to 4 are on about the success
rate of TPM implementation, targets achieved after TPM,
status of TPM journey irrespective of its success and
willingness of the organizations for the implementation of
higher levels of TPM. The research findings of the feedback
provided by different TPM awarded industries is discussed as:
i) In response to these questions the feedback as represented in
Fig. 2 reveals that 29% and 50% Indian industries have
achieved success rate of TPM implementation between 81% &
100% and 61% & 80% respectively, whereas 21% of
industries have achieved this between 41% & 60%. On
average basis, majority of Indian industries find their success
rate between 61% & 80%.
The feedback analysis suggests that high morale of all the
employees towards TPM, adequate support of middle
management and operatives can further improve the success
rate of TPM implementation to higher levels.
Figure 2: Approximate success rate of TPM implementation
ii) 18% of the industries remained successful to achieve all the
TPM targets i.e. Zero defects, Zero breakdowns, Zero losses
and Zero accidents. On the other hand 82% industries have
achieved the target of only zero accidents and 36% industries
have achieved the target of only zero defects. Thus only few
Indian industries remained successful to achieve zero losses
and zero breakdowns which governs that it is practically more
difficult to achieve this important TPM target. More sincere
efforts by all the employees in carrying out Autonomous
Maintenance & Kobestu Kaizen Pillars initiatives effectively
can make it possible to achieve the target of zero losses and
zero breakdowns.
iii) The study reveals that, the journey of TPM implementation
remained either delightful or average delightful in 57% and
36% of the industries respectively. On the other hand only 7%
2487
of the industries find difficulty in the TPM implementation
journey.
iv) The feedback study demonstrates that 77% of the Indian
industries are planning to continue with the implementation of
higher levels of TPM. The industries which find difficulty in
the TPM implementation journey are not interested to
continue with the TPM journey. These results show that
majority of Indian industries are interested to continue with
TPM implementation initiatives for achieving higher levels of
manufacturing excellence.
B. Feedback and Research Findings of Question 5 to 8
The questions 5 to 8 is on about gain in manufacturing
performance after TPM, improvement in availability of
reliability of production facilities after TPM, level of
understanding of expected benefits (P, C, Q, D, S and M) to
all employees and improvement in the up-keep of workplace
after TPM. The study outcome of the feedback provided by
different TPM awarded industries is discussed as:
v) All types of industries observed significant improvement in
their manufacturing performance. Fig. 3 highlights that 31%
of the industries have improved manufacturing performance
more than 80%, 38% industries have improved the
manufacturing performance between 61% and 80%, 23%
industries have improved the manufacturing performance
between 41% and 60% while 8% of the industries have
improved the manufacturing performance up to 40%. So it
can be understood that majority of Indian industries remained
successful in improving their manufacturing performance in
between 60% and 100%.
Figure 3: Percentage gain in manufacturing performance after
TPM implementation
vi) In response to question number 6 it is found that 71%
industries gained a significant improvement in availability and
reliability of production facilities after TPM implementation
and 29% industries find a moderate improvement in
availability and reliability of production facilities after TPM.
On the whole all Indian industry succeeded in improving
availability and reliability of their production facilities after
TPM.
vii) All the employees of 15% of industries have prior
understanding of expected tangible benefits between 41% and
60%, 31% of industries have good understanding between
61% & 80% and the employees of majority (54%) of
industries have excellent (more than 80%) understanding of
expected tangible benefits of TPM. These results govern that
better is the understanding of expected tangible benefits of
TPM to all the employees in an industry, smoother will be the
TPM journey with high success.
viii) The percentage of improvement in up-keeping of
workplace after TPM in 43% of the Indian industries is in
between 81% & 100%, again in other 43% of the Indian
industries it is in between 61% & 80% and in 14% of the
Indian industries it is in between 41% & 60%. Thus it can be
observed that improvement in up-keep of workplace remains
significantly high with the TPM deployment.
C. Feedback and Research Findings of Question 9 to 11
The issues of questions numbered 9 to 11 are on kind of
support provided by middle management, role of workers
union and level of cooperation between management and
employees during TPM implementation. The research findings
of the feedback provided by different TPM awarded industries
is discussed as:
ix) In 86% of the industries, middle management provided
adequate support during TPM implementation whereas it
extended moderate support in 14% of the industries. The high
motivation level and involvement of middle management is
needed to implement TPM and to carry out innovative and
creative TPM initiatives in implementing TPM successfully.
x) The workers’ union provided adequate support in 64% of
industries, moderate support in 28% of industries and
inadequate support in 8% of the industries. It is observed that
there is some lacking in giving sufficient support during TPM
implementation by workers union. The workers played a very
crucial role in implementing the two most important TPM
pillars namely Autonomous Maintenance (AM/JH) and
Kobestu Kaizen (KK) pillars which are helpful to achieve the
targets of zero breakdowns and zero losses respectively. So a
good motivation is needed to bring cultural and behavioral
change in operatives for the good success of TPM.
xi) About 57% industries find the excellent level of
cooperation between management and employees. While in
36% industries the level of cooperation between management
and employees is good enough during TPM implementation.
In most of the industries, the level of cooperation between
management and employees remained good and excellent.
D. Feedback and Research Findings of Questions 12 & 13
The different industries stated different objectives of
implementing TPM in their organizations and the chief
contributing factors varies from industry to industry in
response to questions 12 and 13.
xii) The objectives for the implementation of TPM specified
by most of the TPM awarded Indian industries are:
a) Improvement in productivity, quality, cost, delivery, safety
and morale (P,C,Q,D,S & M)
b) Loss reduction to achieve zero losses, zero defects and zero
breakdown,
c) Improve OEE through total employee involvement and
achieve business excellence.
d) Improve maintenance performance.
e) Cost reduction and skill up-gradation.
xiii) The different industries stated different chief contributing
factors for the successful implementation of TPM in their
organizations. The ranking of these fourteen success factors is
done in relationship with the repetition factor value and the
ranking of success factors is shown in table II.

TABLE II: RANKING OF SUCCESS FACTORS

Success factors Repetition Percentage Ranking

1) Strong commitment of Top Management towards TPM implementation 93 1

2) Evolving appropriate TPM policy and master plan towards TPM implementation 28 5
3) Creating structured TPM secretariat in the organization 21 6
4) Compatibility between business plans of the company with the TPM goals 50 4
5) Appropriate transformation in organizational culture 50 4
6) Appropriate transformation in behavioural culture 28 5
7) Availability of adequate financial resources to carry out TPM initiatives 7 7
8) Total employee involvement towards TPM 86 2
9) Integrated traditional and proactive maintenance policies 7 7
10) Adequate training for the skill enhancements of workers 50 4
11) Focused production system improvements 0 --
12) Effective implementation of TPM initiatives, their monitoring and follow-up. 64 3
13) Adequate support given by middle management 7 7
14) Adequate support given by workers 7 7

2488
This ranking of success factors helped in identifying the
following major contributing factors for the successful
implementation of TPM in their organizations:
 Strong commitment by Top Management
 Total employee involvement
 Effective implementation of TPM initiatives, their
monitoring and follow-up
 Compatibility between business plans of the company with
the TPM goals
 Appropriate transformation in organizational culture
 Adequate training for the skill enhancement of the worker
E. Feedback and Research Findings of Question Number 14
xiv) TPM implementation surely helps the industry in
achieving both tangible and intangible benefits significantly.
The improvements in the major intangible benefits occurred in
industry are described as:
a) Improvement in the morale of employees: The
improvement in the morale of the employees after TPM
enhances in the range from 60% to 95% in most of the
industries, but in few industries it is less than 50%. The
lacking in improved morale of the employees may cause
poor success in TPM implementation while high morale
creates good success.
autonomous maintenance. This purpose is met in most of
the industries with higher satisfaction and the integration
level more than 60%.
g) Improvement in customer satisfaction level : - customer
satisfaction is one of the major goals of TPM. The
improvement in customer satisfaction remained more than
that 80% in majority of Indian industries, but a few
industries provided customer satisfaction up to 45%.
Quality Maintenance Pillar is an important initiative of
TPM methodology which aims to improve customer
satisfaction level through defect free manufacturing.
F. Feedback and Research Findings of Question 15
xv) Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is regarded as an
important measurement for assessing the success rate of TPM
implementation in industry. The analysis of the feedback of
question number 15 gives a very clear highlight that overall
equipment effectiveness (OEE) is the most common parameter
and all the industries have gained a significant improvement in
OEE. Table III is showing the bench mark, target value and
actual achieved OEE by some of the industries.
TABLE III: PERCENTAGE IMPROVEMENT IN THE TANGIBLE BENEFITS (OEE)
ACHIEVED
OEE ( in %age)
Name of Organization Actual
Benchmark Targets
Achieved
National Engg. Industries Ltd.,
Jaipur
- 72 74.5

b) Improvement in the skills of employees: The skill MRF Limited, Goa 79 95 93.7
Exide Industries Ltd., Taloja 64.4 87 87.8
improvement of the workers after TPM has taken place in
TATA Hitachi Construction Co.
between 70% and 100% in most of the industries, but in Ltd., Jamshedpur
62 83 81.1
few industries it is up to 50%. The lacking in improving Real Talent Engineering Ltd
the morale of the employees is responsible for low skill (Showa Engineering Ltd.), 60 85 84
improvement. Tamil Nadu
Tractor and Farm equipment
c) Cultural improvement in company: - TPM remained 65 83 82
Ltd., Chennai
successful to bring significant cultural improvement in the Bajaj Auto Ltd., Pune 80 95 90
industries. In most of the industries, the improvement level TATA Motor Ltd., Pune 70 100 80
of the cultural change lies between 70% and 95%, but only Orient Cement Ltd., Andhra
83.5 95 94.7
Pradesh
in two industries it remained up to 50%. Cultural change is
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.,
must which in fact creates excellent cooperation and Panipat Refinery
74 95 93
coordination among all the employees of an industry for MRF Ltd., Kottayam 69 97 96
the good success of TPM implementation.
Fig. 4 highlights that the OEE after TPM gained by 55% of the
d) Technological up-gradation in company: - Technological industries is in the range from 80% to 90%. On the other hand
up-gradation/improvement goes in parallel with TPM only 36% of the industries remained successful in improving
progress in industry with a focus on improvement in their OEE by more than 90%.
productivity, quality and manufacturing cost reduction.
The technological up-gradation trend in all Indian
industries is of high growth which highlights that Indian
industry is moving towards manufacturing excellence and
is prepared to compete globally.
e) Better machine conditions: - Implementation of TPM
brought big improvement in the machines’ working
conditions. In most of the cases it remained about 80%
improved.
f) Integration of maintenance and operation: - The main
focus of TPM implementation in industry is the integration
of maintenance and operations activities to promote Figure 4: Improvements in OEE

2489

V. CONCLUSION
I) The study on trend of TPM Awards received by Indian
Companies highlights that there remained a good rise from
1995 to 2005 and then the continuous fall from 2006
onwards in the number of TPM awards. The decline in
number of TPM awarded industries is because of various
difficulties in completing TPM implementation journey
successfully. Some of them are identified as:
 Lack of top management commitment.
 Organizational resistance to change.
 Traditional work culture.
 Lack of employee’s involvement towards TPM
implementation.
 Lack of knowledge and understanding of TPM.
 Lack of multi-skill development and periodic evaluation
and up-gradation of employees.
II) The trend of TPM implementation in different types of
industries in India shows that the inclination of engineering
industries towards TPM is much more than process and
service industries. So there is a need to motivate all types of
industries to implement TPM.
III) Develop dynamic human resources with high morale
towards TPM, adequate support of both top and middle
management and operatives can further improve the success
rate of TPM implementation to higher levels.
IV) Establish innovative manufacturing technologies that
can respond to change and comfortable working
environment that is friendly to people are needed for making
the TPM journey more delightful.
V) The most important success factors identified form the
TPM questionnaire feedback are listed below which need to
be adhered for the successful implementation of TPM in
Indian organizations:
 Strong commitment by Top Management
 Total employee involvement
 Effective implementation of TPM initiatives, their
monitoring and follow-up
 Compatibility between business plans of the company
with the TPM goals
 Appropriate transformation in organizational culture
 Adequate training for the skill enhancement of the
worker
VI) TPM implementation helped the industry in achieving
both tangible and intangible benefits significantly. There
remained considerable improvements in the morale of
employees, skills of employees, Cultural change,
technological up-gradation, machine conditions, integration
of maintenance and operation, and customer satisfaction
level after TPM. Also the industries remained successful in
improving their overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by
30% and achieved the world class level of 95% OEE.
VII) In the current scenario of globalization and recession,
the industry all over the world is facing the key challenges
of cost reduction, running the plant at full capacity and
develops innovative manufacturing technologies. The study
findings strongly recommend that TPM implementation is
the most unique way to progress on this front. Many Indian
companies have harnessed the power and magic of TPM
philosophy and achieved international recognition.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Pardeep Gupta is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering
Department at Sant Longowal Institute of Engg & Tech Longowal,
Punjab, India. He obtained his B.E. and M.E. degrees from PEC,
Chandigarh in 1989 & 1997 respectively and PhD. degree form
NIT, Kurukshetra in 2004. His areas of interest include Quality and
Reliability engineering, Total Preventive Maintenance, Industrial
Engineering, Conventional and Non-Conventional Metal
Machining and Optimization Techniques. He has published more
than 60 research papers in various national and international
journals of repute and conference proceedings. He has more than
22 years of teaching and research experience.
Mr. Sachit Vardhan is a PhD. Research Scholar in the
Mechanical Engineering Department at Sant Longowal Institute of
Engg & Tech Longowal, Punjab, India. He obtained his B.Tech.
and M.Tech. degrees from GZSCET, Bathinda and RIET,
Phagwara in 2009 & 2012 respectively His areas of research is
total productive maintenance and production engineering. He has
published more than 17 research papers in various national and
international journals of repute and conference proceedings.
Mr. Md. Shazli Al Haque is aM. Tech. Research Scholar in the
Mechanical Engineering Department at Sant Longowal Institute of
Engg & Tech Longowal, Punjab, India. He obtained his B.Tech.
from BRCM-CET, Bhiwani in 2011.