Adoption of Total Productive Maintenance Practices Among Large Manufacturing Firms in Mombasa County, Kenya
Abstract
Today’s operations managers face many challenges including globalization, ever
increasing competition and dynamic technology. This necessitates adoption of world
class techniques, like continuous improvement in maintenance management, in order
to stay in business. This study traced the origin and subsequent practice of Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM) as a modern tool for achieving sustainable
competitive advantage. It further examined the adoption of TPM practices in 21 large
manufacturing firms located in Mombasa County. It also looked at the benefits,
critical success factors and challenges to TPM adoption. A criterion was first
developed to classify large manufacturers based on power consumption. A maturity
model with five levels (ML1 to ML5) was used to examine the TPM adoption levels.
Data was collected using a self administered questionnaire from the respondent firms.
Descriptive statistics were then used to analyse the data and make conclusions. A
comparison was made between the collected data and the maturity levels scale and
this was used to classify the respondent firms in terms of TPM adoption. From the
results, the respondent firms’ maturity level for TPM adoption corresponds to ML3 in
the score card indicating that the TPM adoption is at a defined level. The results place
large manufacturers in Mombasa County as having process management systems
which depend on some specific constraints for the organizational responsibility or the
technical systems. The results also indicate that the large manufacturers in Mombasa
County have moved from the first two levels of TPM adoption namely initial and
managed levels and are now at the defined level. With further improvement,
investment and advancement, they can climb the next two levels of quantitatively
managed and optimizing. The results identified increased quality and improved
productivity as the key benefits resulting from TPM implementation. Further, the
results showed that the most important critical success factor is co-operation and
involvement of both the operators and the maintenance workers. In addition, top
management support and commitment was also documented as a key critical success
factor. Challenges to TPM implementation were identified as tight budgets for
maintenance functions and pressure of workload. These were the highest challenges to
TPM implementation faced by large manufacturers in Mombasa County. The
researcher recommends that investment and improvement initiatives be channeled
towards maintenance management so as to reach higher levels of TPM adoption.
Enhancement of technological capabilities for maintenance management and
especially enhanced adoption of computerised maintenance management systems
(CMMS) should also be implemented. The adoption of outsourcing practices for
maintenance management was also found to be low. It is hereby recommended that
maintenance managers look into ways of adopting outsourcing of their maintenance
activities as a means of reducing their maintenance costs. Outsourcing would enable
the firms to tap into a larger knowledge pool as opposed to confinement with in-house
resources.
Citation
Degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA), School of Business, University of NairobiPublisher
University of Nairobi, School of Business
Description
A research project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA), School of Business, University of Nairobi