Matching the promotion of total quality control and total productive maintenance: An emerging pattern for the nurturing of well-balanced manufacturers

Abstract

This paper is organized in three parts. First, we discuss the merits of adopting a more eclectic approach that integrates the exploitation of the strengths exhibited by selected, key management paradigms, in the strive to nurturing well-balanced manufacturing firms capable of surviving and prospering in markets where competitiveness is ever increasing. Concepts providing theoretical grounds to such an approach are reviewed. Second, we develop a comparative analysis of the total quality control (TQC) and total productive maintenance (TPM) paradigms which shows that they can be complementary to each other. Grounded on insights acquired from a comparative investigation of archetypal practitioners of TQC and TPM, in particular, the concurrent promotion of enantiomorphic sides and approaches featured by these paradigms is shown not to be antagonistic but rather mandatory nowadays. On that account, we highlight the promising potential of exploiting the strengths that are intrinsic to these two subject paradigms for fostering the new competencies that firms must be equipped with. Finally, we advocate that such a manufacturing strategy can be deployed by the cumulative, stepwise and consistent embedding of performance improvement mechanisms derived from each of the subject paradigms under the framework of unfolding 'strategic staircases'.