Title: A study on the assessment of maintenance practices on business performance in Northern Indian SMEs

Authors: Simranjit Singh Sidhu; Kanwarpreet Singh; Inderpreet Singh Ahuja

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, Punjabi University, Patiala-147002, Punjab, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Punjabi University, Patiala-147002, Punjab, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Punjabi University, Patiala-147002, Punjab, India

Abstract: The present study envisages developing an understanding of the impact of effective maintenance practices embraced by northern Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and their impact on business performance. The current status and comparative analysis of various maintenance practices has been investigated in context of Indian SMEs. The study deploys a specially designed maintenance practices questionnaire and involves an extensive survey of 216 northern Indian SMEs. The study highlights that SMEs have successfully implemented various maintenance improvement initiatives related to breakdown maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, corrective maintenance, maintenance scheduling planning, computerised maintenance management systems and total productive maintenance initiatives in their organisations. The study also validates that Indian SMEs have realised significant business performance enhancements by executing the holistic maintenance practices in an effective manner. The SMEs have witnessed enhanced equipment performance, reliability, quality, employee competencies through strategic maintenance improvement initiatives. After a cautious examination of the current scenario, it is opined that Northern Indian manufacturing SMEs have been following their pursuit for improving organisational performance by affecting significant improvements in maintenance performance.

Keywords: maintenance practices; reliability; quality; northern Indian SMEs; business performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPMB.2022.123709

International Journal of Process Management and Benchmarking, 2022 Vol.12 No.4, pp.436 - 470

Received: 06 Apr 2020
Accepted: 22 Jun 2020
Published online: 01 Jul 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article