Abstract
In today’s industries, the concept of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) has been widely accepted and implemented
yet it’s still possible to find industries facing maintenance challenges. The focus of this paper was to develop an effective
TPM model to improve the maintenance system at a chemical manufacturing company in Zambia. The researchers
set objectives to assess the current maintenance system, to determine the overall equipment effectiveness and to identify
key performance indicators and success factors of TPM. Data relevant to the research was collected using designed
questionnaires, structured interviews, direct observations and company records. The results of the research came double
folded by reviewing that, the maintenance department employed 67.6% breakdown maintenance, 24.3% preventive
maintenance and 8.1% not applicable. The research also reviewed that 78% of the time the operators were not involved
in maintenance activities with only 14% operator involvement. As regards to the effectiveness of the maintenance technique(
s) used, 19% was recorded poor, 65% fair, 8% good and 8% not applicable. Overall equipment effectiveness
(OEE) was calculated at 37% which was below the world class standard by 50%. Equipment downtime was a major
cause of plant under utilization with 52% caused by shortage of spares, 32% shortage of raw materials, 8% due to power
problems and 8% not applicable. TPM awareness deduced 70.5% of the employees been aware of the TPM concept
while 14.7% indicated the concept of TPM would help improve the current maintenance system and 14.7% were not
sure. 29.5% of the employees were not aware of TPM with 64.3% not sure that the TPM concept can help improve the
current maintenance system. Based on these results, knowledge and information sharing, operator involvement and
training should be considered. The researchers then designed a TPM model which would result in effective implementation
of TPM for higher competitiveness in the dynamic business environment.