An Exploration of The Extent of Total Productive Maintenance Implementation in the Iron and Steel Industry in Libya

Abstract

Maintenance concepts have developed steadily due to their importance to factories. Managing maintenance activities significantly improves operating conditions, reduces breakdowns and prevents major equipment failures. In order to achieve the positive impact of maintenance management, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) had a major role in making a paradigm shift in maintenance management. It has been adopted by many major industrial companies around the world. TPM revolves around integrating the role of the human element in maintenance work, but not only maintenance staff, it goes to make production staff an effective guarantor of the success of the maintenance process. This research aims to explore the importance and extent of implementation of the concepts of TPM in an iron and steel industry in Libya. The data was collected by distributing a questionnaire to survey the opinions of experts in the Libyan Iron and Steel Company (LISCO) which is the biggest company in this sector in Libya. The questionnaire is about the importance and applicability of the concepts of TPM and the most important obstacles facing the implementation process. The results of research showed that the efforts of company to implement TPM were unsuccessful. The results of the research indicated that most of those who received training courses in the field of TPM are old workers, and then the training programs stopped. Stopping of the training courses led to the failure of implementation of TPM. The results also showed that there is an awareness of the concept and importance of TPM. However, there is another reason of failure hich is the organizational structures of the company's factories, which are based on the idea of separating the operation and maintenance departments. Although a number of training courses for operational and maintenance staff were implemented, these efforts did not lead to the actual implementation of the TPM concept, as there are types of maintenance operations that require specialized courses that take a long time. Also, the first steps of implementation were not accompanied by any change in the pattern of the organizational structures of the company's factories. The work environment in the company’s factories in Libya may differ from other environments. Imported frameworks often do not receive the response and success as they found in their original environments. Therefore, such principles and concepts need to be coordinated and adapted to different industrial environments.