Maintenance strategy in Malaysian
manufacturing companies: a total
productive maintenance (TPM) approach
Halim Mad Lazim and T. Ramayah
Halim Mad Lazim is a
Lecturer in the Operations
Department, College of
Business, Universiti Utara
Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia.
T. Ramayah is an Associate
Professor in the Technology
Management Lab, School
of Management, Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Minden,
Malaysia.
DOI 10.1108/17515631011093098
Introduction
Maintenance has become more challenging in the current dynamic business environment. It
is considered one of the important strategic decisions in operations management (Russell
and Taylor, 2009; Heizer and Render, 2009, Krawjeski and Ritzman, 2002). The
manufacturing sector has been experiencing tremendous challenges in ensuring all
products are delivered to customers on time. However, the current business environment
and pressures from various parties such as customers, suppliers, governments and so forth
have put manufacturing sectors under severe pressure. To operate efficiently and effectively,
manufacturing sectors need to ensure no disruption due to equipment breakdown,
stoppages and failure. More importantly, the rapid change in technologies and the
marketplace requires the manufacturing sector to improve performance by emphasizing
cost reduction, increasing quality and delivery levels, and improving equipment and human
resources flexibility (Ahuja and Khamba, 2008). According to Kutucuoglu et al. (2001),
reliable equipment is regarded as the main contributor to the performance and profitability of
manufacturing systems, especially in a dynamic and challenging environment. TPM is a
resource-based maintenance management system. It focuses on improving equipment
effectiveness, productivity, workplace safety and environmental issues, and eliminating
production losses. Total participation from all employees including top management and
operators is vital in TPM. More importantly, the role of top management stimulates the
contribution of operators to achieve zero breakdowns, zero stoppages and a safer working
environment. Moreover, TPM consolidates the preventive and predictive maintenance
approaches with an emphasis on employee participation. The usage of technologies to
detect any abnormality or deterioration of the equipment also supports the predictive
maintenance principle. Additionally, TPM integrates preventive maintenance,
condition-based maintenance and predictive maintenance activities as well.
In TPM, periodic maintenance is directed towards predictive maintenance, which can detect
any equipment deterioration and failure more effectively using new embedded technology
and condition-based inspection technology such as vibration, spectroscopy, thermography
and others (Parida and Kumar, 2006). However, in order to enable employee participation,
training and education should be provided sufficiently through proper and well-structured
program. The elements of training are very important in any organization, regardless whether
they are manufacturing or services oriented. Consequently, training plays an important role
in minimizing the negative effect of system complexity on manufacturing system
performance (Guimaraes et al., 1999). However, in TPM implementation various authors
have stressed the contribution of training towards performance (Ahmed et al., 2005; Ireland
and Dale, 2006; Sharma et al., 2006; Tsarouhas, 2007). Therefore, understanding
maintenance as a strategic decision can eliminate any potential of equipment
deterioration, failures, breakdowns and stoppages.
VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010, pp. 387-396, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1751-5637 j BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES j PAGE 387
 Total productive maintenance
Maintenance jobs have been perceived as reactive tasks that require repairs and
replacement of parts or just to fix malfunctioning equipment (Ahuja and Khamba, 2008).
Traditionally, maintenance has been considered as a support function, one that is
non-productive and not a core function, thus adding little value to the business (Bamber
et al., 1999). According to Al-Najjar and Alsyouf (2003), the maintenance function has
become more challenging in maintaining and improving product quality, safety
requirements, and plant cost effectiveness. Maintenance supports the production
department to achieve the desired quantity and quality of products produced through
ensuring the availability of equipment. Hence, equipment relies not only on availability, but
also performance and quality (Nakajima, 1988). TPM, a resource-based approach,
emphasises the importance of total employee participation and cooperation among various
departments in maintenance activities. However, the main focus is to allow operators to be
actively involved in basic maintenance jobs. The era of total productive maintenance (TPM)
in the 1970s was focused on preventive maintenance efficiency. The emphasis is on
individuals and total employee involvement through a comprehensive system (Nakajima,
1989). TPM shows an important aspect of employee involvement from all levels, teamwork
and continuous improvement activities. The history of TPM began back in 1969 when the
pioneer in implementing TPM, Nippon Denso Company, was the first company to be
awarded the Distinguished Plant Prize or PM Prize in 1971. The definition of TPM includes
five major elements (Nakajima, 1988):
1. overall equipment effectiveness maximisation;
2. a thorough system of preventive maintenance for the equipments whole life span;
3. implementation by various departments (engineering, production, maintenance, etc.);
4. total employee involvement from top management to the workers on the floor; and
5. motivation management through small group activities and teamwork.
Teamwork among all employees in various departments in manufacturing companies can
ensure better TPM implementation. Indeed, the complexity of getting commitment and
involvement from employees is one of the implementation difficulties of TPM (Arca and
Prado, 2008). Historically, there have three eras of maintenance in Japan, where TPM
originated (Nakajima, 1988).The first era, known as the preventive maintenance era (1950s),
emphasised establishing maintenance functions. The second era (1960s) was the
introduction of productive maintenance, where maintenance prevention, reliability,
maintainability engineering took place. However, the third era, total productive
maintenance the in 1970s, put the emphasis on total employee participation and strong
support from top management.
The employee involvement is nonetheless essential, particularly on the part of the person
who operates the equipment. Sufficient and effective training programs can help to detect
abnormalities in the equipment condition as soon as possible. Moreover, it is very important
to follow up on any training and education programmes in order to ensure that operators
commitment, skills and knowledge are at exceptional level. Furthermore, through total
employee involvement, scepticism about maintenance being a support function,
non-productive and not a core function that adds little value to the business (Bamber
et al., 1999) can be avoided.
Basically, there are many advantages that can be achieved through TPM implementation.
For instance, TPM can lead to improvements in quality cost delivery and flexibility (Sharma
et al., 2006; Cua et al., 2001; McKone et al., 1999, 2001; Seth and Tripathi, 2005; Seth and
Tripathi, 2006). Meanwhile, Ahuja and Khamba (2008) critically analysed and reviewed TPM
related articles to show some importance directions in the TPM study. It can be clearly
observed that TPM is a widely accepted approach to compete in the global competitive
environment (Ahmed et al., 2005; Ahuja and Khamba, 2007, 2008; Brah and Chong, 2004;
Seth and Tripathi, 2005, 2006).

j j
PAGE 388 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010
Theoretical framework
Various researchers have noted the importance of TPM implementation in the manufacturing
environment (Ahmed et al., 2005; Tsarouhas, 2007; Ahuja and Khamba, 2007; Salaheldin and
Eid, 2007) and in the service sector (Patra et al., 2005; Pramod et al., 2006). In addition,
Barney (1991) argues that in the resource-based view (RBV), the resources of the firm enable
it firm to achieve competitive advantage, which can lead to superior long-term performance.
Moreover, the resource base of the firms has contributed to a theory of competitive advantage
(Barney, 1991; Fahy, 2000). The TPM team is also a vital element in ensuring that
manufacturing performance can be achieved, as without proper team management, TPM
objectives are difficult to achieve. Moreover, McKone et al. (2001) ascertain that teamwork is
very important in TPM, and have used it as one of the measures to assess the level of TPM
implementation. In fact, Ireland and Dale (2006) suggest that teamwork is not only essential in
TPM practices, but is considered as one of the criteria for its success.
A TPM strategy involves conducting activities that relate to maximising equipment
effectiveness, continuous improvement actions taken to improve quality (kaizen),
increasing safety and reducing costs, and actions to raise the morale of the team that is
implementing TPM (Eti et al., 2004). The contributions of autonomous maintenance and
planned maintenance enable the production operator to run the equipment effectively, thus
also preventing deterioration (Nakajima, 1989). Basically, there are many advantages that
can be achieved through TPM implementation. For instance, TPM can lead to improvements
in quality, cost, delivery and flexibility (Sharma et al., 2006; Cua et al., 2001; McKone et al.,
1999, 2001; Seth and Tripathi, 2005, 2006). The company size definition is varied among
countries (Bonavia and Marin, 2006) and high-capacity utilisation equipment tends to be
maintained regularly in order to prevent deterioration (Nakajima, 1988). Larger companies
that are able to invest more in sophisticated equipment and machines thus avoid frequent
maintenance activities. Larger companies have the ability to allocate a sufficient amount of
provision for training and education programmes. More importantly, the efforts to ensure
continuous improvements are not restricted to bigger companies. Thus, many small and
medium-sized companies also make efforts to ensure that continuous improvement
endeavours are always a major priority.

Research design and methodology

This is a cross-sectional study focusing on manufacturing companies in Malaysia. This study
was conducted in order to examine the extent of TPM practices and to study the relationship
of TPM practices to manufacturing performance. The sampling technique used is
proportionate stratified random sampling, and we employed the steps proposed by Gay and
Diehl (1992) to determine the required sample size. More than 1,000 self-administered
questionnaires were sent to respondents who were managers of quality, operations, plants,
engineering and those who were familiar with TPM. A support letter from the Malaysian
Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) was attached with the questionnaire. The TPM
team was measured using a five-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree). However, the other variables were measured using a five-point scale ranging from 1
(not at all) to 5 (a very great extent).
The measures of this study were taken from various sources. For instance, the TPM team was
adopted and adapted from Brah and Chong (2004); TPM strategy items were adapted from
Eti et al.(2004) and Brah and Chong (2004); and autonomous maintenance, measured by
eight items, and planned maintenance, measured by five items, were adapted from McKone
et al.(1999) and Brah and Chong (2004).

Research findings
Profile of the respondents
In total, 167 questionnaires were returned and there were only 106 usable responses (10.07
per cent); the data were analysed accordingly. In order to increase the response rate, efforts

j j
VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 389
 were made as suggested by Dillman (2000) and Jobber (1985). Nonetheless, the low
response rate was expected as studies conducted in Malaysia by Yusuff (2004) and Ahmed
et al. (2005), for example, recorded only response rates of only 8.8 per cent and 9.1 per cent,
respectively. Table I shows the demographic profile of the respondents sampled.

Factor analysis and reliability analysis

The reliability test was conducted after factor analysis, with a Varimax rotation. Factor
analysis shows factor loadings of the studys variables, for which the eigenvalues of TPM
Team, TPM Strategy, Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance were 6.29, 7.23,
6.86 and 1.45, respectively. Meanwhile, cost, delivery, quality and flexibility recorded
eigenvalues of 8.56, 1.09, 0.95 and 0.59 accordingly. All the variables show convincing
Cronbachs a values (greater than 0.8). Therefore, all the variables were included for further
analysis. Table II shows the reliability assessment of the variables.

The extent of TPM practices in Malaysian manufacturing companies

Table III shows the descriptive statistics of the study variables to show the extent of TPM
practices in Malaysian manufacturing companies. As can be observed from Table III, of the
four dependent variables, delivery showed the highest mean value of 3.76 (standard
deviation of 0.86). This indicates that all the participating manufacturing companies were
concerned about meeting delivery to customers on time by putting it as their first priority.
This is followed by quality (mean of 3.59 and standard deviation of 0.82); thus respondents

Table I Demographic profile

Variables Frequency Per cent

Company size
Small/medium 35 33
Large 71 67

Types of production process

Project 5 4.7
Batch 32 30.2
Mass 51 48.1
Continuous 18 17

Years of operation
,10 9 8.5
10-20 58 54.7
21-30 26 24.5
.30 13 12.3

ISO certified company

Yes 96 90.6
No 10 9.4

Type of company
Multinational corporation 55 51.9
Joint venture 11 10.4
Locally owned 32 30.2
Others 8 7.5

Table II Reliability assessment of variables

Variable Number of items Items dropped Items added Cronbachs a

TPM team 9 0.95

TPM strategy 12 0.94
Autonomous maintenance 9 2 0.89
Planned maintenance 4 0.85

j j
PAGE 390 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010
Table III Descriptive statistics of the variables
Variable Mean SD

TPM team 3.81 0.76

TPM strategy 3.93 0.61
Autonomous Maintenance 3.91 0.63
Planned Maintenance 3.70 0.72

seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on ensuring that the quality of their products is at the
highest level. Meanwhile, the components of the independent variable TPM strategy showed
the highest mean (3.93) followed by autonomous maintenance (mean 3.91), TPM team
(mean 3.81) and planned maintenance (mean 3.70). All the respondents agree that all the
components are important.

Correlation analysis
The correlation analysis reveals that all the variables are significantly correlated at p , 0:01
as depicted in Table IV.
This section discusses the tests that are used to test whether there are positive relationship
among the TPM practices and the results obtained. The bivariate data analysis technique
was used in the Pearson correlation. This was to test the individual relationships of each TPM
practice. A Pearson correlation analysis was performed among the TPM practices. The
result of the correlation analysis is presented in Table IV. From the figures presented in
Table IV, the correlation coefficients are found to be positive and statistically significant at the
0.01 level, showing that there are strong relationships between TPM team and TPM strategy
(r 0:58), TPM team and TPM autonomous maintenance (r 0:58), and TPM team and
TPM planned maintenance (r 0:44). Table III also shows that the TPM strategy is also
positively correlated with TPM autonomous maintenance at a 0.01 significance level
(r 0:76). There is also a positive and significant relationship between TPM strategy and
planned maintenance (p , 0:01, r 0:64).

Discussion and conclusion

This study has investigated the extent of TPM practices in Malaysian manufacturing
companies. The findings show that the extent of TPM practices in Malaysian manufacturing
companies has good prospects, as all of companies agreed that all the practices are at high
levels. However, TPM strategy and autonomous maintenance were the highest scoring
practices in this study. More importantly, the result indicates that the maintenance function
acts as a support to production department and must involve operators in daily
maintenance. As highlighted earlier, TPM is a resource-based approach where all
employees are responsible for contributing to avoiding equipment deterioration,
breakdowns, failures and stoppages. Communication among operators, maintenance
people and engineers is very important, and in TPM these people collectively collaborate
and interact with each other (Witt, 2006).
On the other hand, Table III illustrates the correlation analysis and shows that TPM team,
TPM strategy, TPM autonomous maintenance and TPM planned maintenance are equally
important. If TPM team utilisation is high, therefore, the TPM strategy is also good, as

Table IV Correlation of TPM practices

TPM team TPM strategy TPM AM TPM PM

TPM team 1
TPM strategy 0.58** 1
TPM AM 0.58** 0.76** 1
TPM PM 0.44** 0.64** 0.62** 1

j j
VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 391
 everyone is involved actively in continuous improvement activities. Table IV also shows that
all TPM practices were equally important in contributing to the effectiveness of the TPM
programme through total employee participation. TPM Autonomous Maintenance, for
example, requires proper and systematic TPM strategy implementation, especially training
and education for all employees. Additionally, Gebauer et al. (2008) mention that Chinese
manufacturing companies should focus on total productive maintenance and predictive
maintenance in order to improve performance. Therefore, the TPM strategy should be
strengthened and emphasised accordingly. Meanwhile, TPM Autonomous Maintenance
showed the highest correlation coefficient (0.76), indicating that total employee participation
must become the foundation for planned maintenance activities.
All TPM practices showed convincing correlation coefficients with each other, except for
TPM team and TPM planned maintenance. However, TPM team still a showed positive
correlation with all the other practices. Undoubtedly, all TPM practices such as TPM team,
TPM strategy, autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance require total support
and commitment from all employees, including top management. Maintenance needs a
proper strategy in order to achieve the desired results. Therefore, a TPM strategy that
requires properly well planned activities to eliminate waste, breakdowns and stoppages, ad
to increase the morale of teams and others, needs to be strengthened. It cannot be doubted
that in order to achieve the desired results in improvements such as TPM, commitment from
all levels is essential. Autonomous maintenance has shown it has an important contribution
to manufacturing organisations. Moreover, autonomous maintenance specifically puts more
focus on operators to participate actively in maintenance activities. However, the
prerequisite for the success of autonomous maintenance is effective and thorough
training and education programmes. Simple activities such as daily cleaning and checking
the equipment can be very useful to detect abnormalities in equipment performance.
However, the more important thing here is that operators must be exposed to systematic
training and education programmes and should be able to report any problems detected
promptly to line supervisors or technicians for remedial action. Hence, support and
commitment from top management is very important for such continuous improvement
efforts. In fact, leadership and top management support significantly affect job satisfaction
as well (Ooi et al., 2008).
Activities such as cleaning and checking equipment can detect any leakages or loose nuts
and bolts that can further cause equipment failure and breakdown. Dusty and dirty
equipment can hide abnormalities such as insufficient quantities of lubricant, leakages,
untidy cables, and so forth. Autonomous maintenance can not only able to help
manufacturing companies to reduce the cost of manufacturing, but also can contribute to a
better quality product being produced as not there are no disruptions to production or failure
of equipment. In addition, Jantan et al. (2003) concluded that the extent of TPM
implementation (autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance) has a positive and
significant effect on organisational performance. Good quality products can be delivered to
customers on time with as no reworking of defective products due to equipment failures and
other related problems. In fact, Phusavat and Kanchana (2008) confirm that delivery and
quality are important competitive priorities. Through autonomous maintenance, operators
will be more responsive and better coordinated to perform various jobs as long as
continuous effective and efficient training and education programmes are provided.
Operators are more flexible in doing various basic maintenance jobs and contributing to
continuous improvement activities, so that cleaning, inspections, lubrication, adjusting and
so forth are done accordingly. The main point that needs to be addressed clearly here is
regarding the documentations process. All activities related to cleaning, inspections,
lubrications, adjusting of equipment and so forth should be recorded and maintained for
regular analysis. Through regular analysis, the results can be shared among all employees
and the performance can be observed accordingly for further improvements. The role of
planned maintenance is to ensure that equipment-related information regarding
breakdowns, stoppages, disruptions, failures and others are available to all employees.

j j
PAGE 392 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010
Management must highlight to all employees the need to improve equipment conditions
continuously and maintain a focus on increasing performance. This study leads us to the
conclusion that a lack of autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance can
potentially affect smooth daily operations. Consequently, plant or manufacturing managers
who are looking for a technique to involve operators in helping maintenance staff should look
seriously at the findings of this present study. Through autonomous maintenance and
planned maintenance, abnormalities and breakdowns are detected by the operators, so
avoiding disruption to daily operations. Autonomous maintenance requires strong
self-discipline among operators to look after equipment. Programmes to ensure the total
commitment of all employees to TPM practices must be properly planned and executed. The
working environment should also be designed to accommodate TPM practices, where
training and education initiatives are conducted continuously. Moreover, reviewing training
and education programs is also important so as to evaluate the effectiveness of the
programs. Equal opportunities should be made available to all employees to contribute
something to the organisation and to be rewarded accordingly.
The role of top management is essential to ensure that TPM objectives and goals are aligned
with the overall goals of the business. This means that employees especially operators
who are exposed to effective and sufficient training programs are able to detect any
equipment abnormalities and avoid breakdowns and failures. The findings also indicate that
the correlations of the TPM practices were high, and indicated the importance of the TPM
practices. For instance, autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance programmes
can potentially reduce costs in the manufacturing environment through operator involvement
in daily maintenance.
Although maintenance staff are important, additional focus should be directed towards
efforts to improve the life cycle, reliability and efficiency of equipment. In general, TPM
practices can improve manufacturing performance (Brah and Chong, 2004; Seth and
Tripathi, 2005). The structure of the TPM team can perhaps be evaluated and improved
further. As proposed by Lee (2008), team members need to have sufficient knowledge, in
new product development. However, in TPM, team members who are able to demonstrate
the ability to apply their skills and knowledge to improve performance are certainly very
important. This implies that top management should look closely at the TPM team and pay
extra attention to utilising TPM team members. Hence, Ferrari et al. (2002) suggest the role of
the TPM team in TPM implementation.
However, with a small sample size, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be
generalised as planned.

Suggestions for future research

This study only focuses on four TPM practices in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. Many
other potential factors exist that can affect manufacturing performance, such as leadership,
continuous improvement activities, focus on customer satisfaction, information architecture
(Seth and Tripathi, 2005) and so forth. Future research should attempt to examine the
influence of such factors on manufacturing performance. In addition, there are moderating
variables that can potentially affect the relationship between TPM practices and
manufacturing performance, such as the complexity of the production process, the
complexity of the technology, the size of the company, and quality certification status.
Perhaps further research can be conducted to investigate the moderating effect of these
variables on the relationship between TPM practices and manufacturing performance.

References
Ahmed, S., Masjuki, H.H. and Taha, Z. (2005), TPM can go beyond maintenance: excerpt from a case
implementation, Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 19-42.
Ahuja, I.P.S. and Khamba, J.S. (2007), An evaluation of TPM implementation in an Indian manufacturing
enterprise, Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 338-52.

j j
VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 393
 Ahuja, I.P.S. and Khamba, J.S. (2008), Total productive maintenance: literature review and directions,
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 25 No. 7, pp. 709-56.

Al-Najjar, B. and Alsyouf, I. (2003), Selecting the most efficient maintenance approach using fuzzy
multiple criteria decision making, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 84 No. 1,
pp. 85-100.
Arca, J.G. and Prado, J.C.P. (2008), Personnel participation as a key factor for success in maintenance
program implementation: a case study, International Journal of Productivity and Performance
Management, Vol. 57 No. 3, pp. 247-58.
Bamber, C.J., Sharp, J.M. and Hides, M.T. (1999), Factors affecting successful implementation of total
productive maintenance: a UK manufacturing case study perspective, Journal of Quality Engineering,
Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 162-81.
Barney, J.B. (1991), Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage, Journal of Management,
Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 99-120.
Bonavia, T. and Marin, J.A. (2006), An empirical study of lean production in the ceramic tile industry in
Spain, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 505-31.
Brah, S.A. and Chong, W.K. (2004), Relationship between total productive maintenance and
performance, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 42 No. 12, pp. 2383-401.
Cua, K.O., McKone, K.E. and Schroeder, R.G. (2001), Relationships between implementation of TQM,
JIT, and TPM and manufacturing performance, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 19 No. 6,
pp. 675-94.
Dillman, D.A. (2000), Mail and Internet Survey: The Tailored Design Method, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York,
NY.
Eti, M.C., Ogaji, S.O.T. and Probert, S.D. (2004), Implementing total productive maintenance in
Nigerian manufacturing industries, Applied Energy, Vol. 79 No. 4, pp. 385-401.
Fahy, J. (2000), The resource-based view of the firm: some stumbling blocks on the road to
understanding sustainable competitive advantage, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 24
Nos 2-4, pp. 94-104.
Ferrari, E., Pareschi, A., Regattieri, A. and Persona, A. (2002), TPM: situation and procedure for a soft
introduction in Italian factories, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 14 No. 6, pp. 350-8.

Gay, L.R. and Diehl, P.L. (1992), Research Methods for Business and Management, Macmillan,
New York, NY.
Gebauer, H., Putz, F., Fischer, T., Wang, C. and Lin, J. (2008), Exploring maintenance strategies in
Chinese product manufacturing companies, Management Research News, Vol. 31 No. 12, pp. 941-50.
Guimaraes, T., Martensson, N., Stahre, J. and Igbaria, M. (1999), Empirically testing the impact of
manufacturing system complexity on performance, International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 1254-69.
Heizer, J. and Render, B. (2009), Operations Management Flexible Edition, 9th ed., Pearson
Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Ireland, F. and Dale, B.G. (2006), Total productive maintenance: criteria for success, International
Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 207-23.
Jantan, M., Nasurdin, A.M., Ramayah, T. and Ghazali, A.S. (2003), Total productive maintenance and
organizational performance: a preliminary study, Jurnal Ekonomi dan Bisnis, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 337-56.
Jobber, D. (1985), Questionnaire factors and mail survey response rates, European Research, Vol. 13
No. 3, pp. 124-9.
Krawjeski, L.J. and Ritzman, L.P. (2002), Operations Management: Strategy and Analysis, 6th ed.,
Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Kutucuoglu, K.Y., Hamali, J., Irani, Z. and Sharp, J.M. (2001), A framework for managing maintenance
using performance measurement systems, International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, Vol. 21 Nos 1/2, pp. 173-94.
Lee, L.T.-S. (2008), The effects of team reflexivity and innovativeness on new product development
performance, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 108 No. 4, pp. 548-69.

j j
PAGE 394 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010
McKone, K.E., Schonberger, R.G. and Cua, K.O. (1999), Total productive maintenance: a contextual
view, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 123-44.
McKone, K.E., Schroeder, R.G. and Cua, K.O. (2001), The impact of total productive maintenance
practices on manufacturing performance, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 39-58.
Nakajima, S. (1988), TPM An Introduction to Total Productive Maintenance, Productivity Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Nakajima, S. (1989), TPM Development Program Implementing Total Productive Maintenance,
Productivity Press, New York, NY.
Ooi, K.-B., Arumugam, V., Teh, P.-L. and Chong, A.Y.-L. (2008), TQM practices and its association with
production workers, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 108 No. 7, pp. 909-27.
Parida, A. and Kumar, U. (2006), Maintenance performance measure (MPM): issues and challenges,
Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 239-51.
Patra, N.K., Tripathy, J.K. and Choudhary, B.K. (2005), Implementing the office total productive
maintenance (office TPM) program: a library case study, Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 7, pp. 415-24.
Phusavat, K. and Kanchana, R. (2008), Future competitiveness: view points from manufacturers and
service providers, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 108 No. 2, pp. 191-207.
Pramod, V.R., Devadasan, S.R., Muthu, S., Jagathyraj, V.P. and Moorthy, G.D. (2006), Integrating TPM
and QFD for improving quality in maintenance engineering, Journal of Quality in Maintenance
Engineering, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 150-71.
Russell, R.S. and Taylor, B.W. (2009), Operations Management: Creating Value along the Supply Chain,
6th ed., Wiley, New York, NY.
Salaheldin, S.I. and Eid, R. (2007), The implementation of world class manufacturing techniques in
Egyptian manufacturing firms: an empirical study, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 107
No. 4, pp. 551-66.
Seth, D. and Tripathi, D. (2005), Relationship between TQM and TPM implementation factors and
business performance of manufacturing industry in Indian context, International Journal of Quality
& Reliability Management, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 256-77.
Seth, D. and Tripathi, D. (2006), A critical study of TQM and TPM approaches on business performance
of Indian manufacturing industry, Total Quality Management, Vol. 17 No. 7, pp. 811-24.
Sharma, R.K., Kumar, D. and Kumar, P. (2006), Manufacturing excellence through TPM implementation:
a practical analysis, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 106 No. 2, pp. 256-80.
Tsarouhas, P. (2007), Implementation of total productive maintenance in food industry: a case study,
Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 5-18.
Witt, C.E. (2006), TPM: the foundation of lean, Material Handling Management, Vol. 61 No. 8, pp. 42-5.
Yusuff, R.M. (2004), Manufacturing best practices of the electric and electronic firms in Malaysia,
Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 361-9.

Further reading
Allison, P.D. (1999), Multiple Regression: A Primer, Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Kennedy, P. (1985), A Guide to Econometrics, 2nd ed., Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Raymond, L. and St-Pierre, J. (2005), Antecedents and performance outcomes of advanced
manufacturing systems sophistication in SMEs, International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 514-33.
Skinner, W. (1974), The focused factory, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 113-21.
Vachon, S. (2003), Green Supply Chain Practices: An Examination of their Antecedents and
Performance Outcomes, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
Ward, P.T., Duray, R., Leong, G.K. and Sum, C.C. (1995), Business environment, operations strategy
and performance: an empirical study of Singapore manufacturers, Journal of Operations Management,
Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 99-115.
Ward, P.T., McCreery, J.K., Ritzman, L.P. and Sharma, D. (1998), Competitive priorities in operations
management, Decision Sciences, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 1035-46.

j j
VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 395
 About the authors
Halim Mad Lazim has been a Lecturer in the Operations Department, College of Business,
Universiti Utara Malaysia since 2001. He mainly teaches courses in quality management and
operations management. He graduated as a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1997
from Universiti Utara Malaysia. He received his MSc in Engineering Management from
Warwick University, UK, in 2002 and furthered his specialisation in total productive
maintenance (TPM) for a PhD from the Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has presented
numerous papers especially under maintenance and quality in Malaysia and other
occasions in Sydney and Romania. Halim Mad Lazim is the corresponding author and can
be contacted at: mlhalim@uum.edu.my
T. Ramayah has an MBA from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Currently he is an Associate
Professor at the School of Management in USM. He mainly teaches courses in research
methodology and business statistics and has also conducted training courses for local
government (research methods for candidates departing overseas for higher degrees,
Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam). Apart from teaching, he is an avid researcher, especially in
the areas of technology management and adoption in business and education. Thus far, he
has published in several journals such as Information Development, Direct Marketing,
WSEAS Transactions on Information Science & Applications, International Journal of
Learning, The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, Asian
Journal of Information Technology, International Journal of Services and Technology
Management, International Journal of Business Information Systems, Journal of Project
Management, Management Research News, International Journal of Information and
Operations Management Education, International Journal of Services and Operations
Management, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, and North
American Journal of Psychology. Having his contributions in research acknowledged, he
is constantly invited to serve on the editorial boards and program committees of several
international journals and conferences of repute.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

j j
PAGE 396 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 11 NO. 6 2010
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.