Implementing total productive maintenance in multi-union manufacturing organizations: Overcoming job demarcation

Total productive maintenance (TPM) is a change management approach that has been shown to have considerable impact on the internal efficiency of manufacturing organizations, both in the West and in Japan. One of the central tenets of TPM is autonomous maintenance, hence there is an implied loss of job demarcation. Although there are many TPM studies in the literature, there are few which concentrate on implementing TPM in heavily demarcated and unionized organizations. This paper describes the results of a study to investigate TPM applications in multi-unionized and heavily demarcated manufacturing organizations. Implementation and key success factors are discussed. Comparisons are also made with best-practice applications in Japan.