Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on total productive maintenance (TPM) implementation practice to present an overview of TPM implementation practices adopted by various manufacturing organizations and suggest possible gaps from researchers and practitioner’s point of view. This study tries to identify the best strategy for improving competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in globalized market and evaluates TPM implementation practice in SMEs. Design/methodology/approach – The objective of this paper is to study the role of TPM program in context of Indian industries either from SMEs to large-scale industries. The approach has been directed toward justification of TPM implementation practice for its support to competitive manufacturing in the context of Indian manufacturing industries. Findings – TPM implementation improves productivity and working efficiency of employees and also improves equipment effectiveness and a positive inclination toward company is registered. Therefore, equipment maintenance is an indispensable function in a manufacturing enterprise. In this highly competitive environment, manufacturing organizations should consider maintenance function as a potential source for cost savings and competitive advantage. SMEs must be considered as an engine for economic growth all over the world (Singh et al. , 2008). A total of 148 papers related to TPM implementation in large-scale industries and SMEs were collected, analyzed and classified on the basis of their applications, broadly into large industry and SMEs and further divided into Indian and Non-Indian, then case study, implementation, model, literature review, maintenance, service, etc. This classification has clearly shows that SMEs are in a need to adopt TPM implementation practice to compete in this global market and changing requirements of large industries. Maintenance is an indispensable function in a manufacturing enterprise. In this highly competitive environment, manufacturing organizations must be considered maintenance function as a potential source for cost savings and competitive advantage. Singh et al. (2008) have concluded that SMEs must be considered as an engine for economic growth of all over the world. Following are the objectives of this study: to suggest a classification of available literature on TPM implementation; to identify the need of TPM implementation in SMEs; to identify critical observations on each category of classification; to identify the potential of SMEs in India; to identify emerging trends of TPM implementation in India; to suggest directions for future researchers in the field of TPM implementation on the basis of above mention points; and to consolidate all available literature on TPM implementation practice. Research limitations/implications – The challenges of stiff competition and the drive for profits are forcing the organizations to implement various productivity improvement efforts to meet the challenges posed by ever-changing market demands. In the dynamic and highly challenging environment, reliable manufacturing equipment is regarded as the major contributor to the performance and profitability of manufacturing systems. Practical implications – In this dynamic world, importance of SMEs in the growth of the nation needs more attention of researchers and industrialists. After the globalization of market, SMEs have got many opportunities to work in integration with large-scale organizations. All the organizations from SMEs to large-scale industries can adopt effective and efficient maintenance strategies such as condition-based maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance and TPM over the traditional firefighting reactive maintenance approaches (Sharma et al. , 2005). Social implications – In our view, this paper clearly identifies implications for research which will be useful for society. The gap discussed by authors needs to be addressed by future researchers. Originality/value – This implementation strategy can help to save huge amounts of time, money and other useful resources in dealing with reliability, availability, maintainability and performance issues. On the basis of available literature, it can be understood that SMEs should change their maintenance strategies to cope up with global competition so that a lot of resources can be utilized in a better direction.
