Cases Studies on Total Productive Management and Competitive Advantages

The purpose of business strategy is to achieve competitive advantages which includes higher efficiency, better quality, more innovation and faster customer response. In other words, the business strategy is to build unique capability of lower cost and/or differentiation. In production aspect, unique capability means better production power with better performance at 3M(Man, Machine, Material) of input and PQCDSM (Product, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, Moral) from output. The Total Productive Management (TPM), a series of improvement activities focused on reduction of equipment loss, is a tool to establish business competitive advantages. In this paper, several domestic companies who won the Japan TPM Award have been studied. It is found that there is a strong cause‐effect relationship between TPM and competitive advantages because: (1) TPM can change employees mindset effectively; (2) TPM can upgrade employees capabilities; (3) TPM can lead to excellent productivity.