Continuous improvement of operations: The impact of operator maintenance.

摘要

Continuous improvement (CI) of operations is closely associated with employee involvement (EI). Correspondingly, a lot of research has been conducted on EI, focused on several well-known forms. However, one form of EI is often neglected, namely, operator involvement in equipment maintenance, or operator maintenance.; Operator maintenance has been advocated under the banner of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). TPM practices are considered an important element of the Toyota production system, and hence closely related to CI. Thus, operator maintenance finds mention in numerous works on CI, although mostly in passing.; Operator maintenance can play an important role in CI. Employee involvement in continuous improvement requires that employees (i) feel a sense of ownership of the process, and (ii) be technically competent to suggest and/ or implement improvements. Operator maintenance has the potential to satisfy these requirements, and thus provide the necessary environment for CI. Additionally, it can free up highly skilled maintenance technicians, whose talents can be directed to CI.; This research addressed the question: Does the involvement of operators in equipment maintenance contribute to the pursuit of CI? The study used an empirical research methodology. Suitable measures were developed for the constructs under study. A mail survey questionnaire was administered to manufacturing plants adopting EI and operator maintenance practices to various extents. The data collected were analysed using a Partial Least Squares (PLS) model.; The answer to the above research question was, for operator involvement in (i) basic maintenance, "yes", (ii) setups, "maybe", and (iii) repairs, "no", or at least "not the way it has been done".; A corollary to the research question was also posed: "What role do EI initiatives play in fostering CI?" In this respect, EI practices that stood out as most beneficial were power sharing practices and improvement incentives.; While this study was exploratory, and the sample size was small, the results lend credibility to normative assertions in the literature, that operator maintenance can indeed be an important managerial initiative. The results suggest more research is merited into (i) extending the generalisability of the findings, and (ii) better understanding how operator maintenance impacts performance and CI.