SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH TPM AND DESIGN THINKING

Abstract

Global awareness of manufacturing's significant role in environmental devastation has grown in recent decades. With this issue, there is an ongoing discussion over the motivations for firms to shift from compliance-based approaches to more proactive approaches, including environmental, economic and social considerations at the same time. Despite the rising implementation of environmental rules and standards in manufacturing, industrial activity has led to an ever-increasing surge in CO2 emissions. A company's various stakeholders demand that they maintain a high level of sustainability. Therefore, improving production systems' sustainability performances (SPs) became a strategic necessity. Modern businesses must reinvent their manufacturing methods to adhere to sustainable production norms, which dictate that goods be created using the least amount of resources feasible while also aiming to provide sustainable and environmentally friendly items at a reasonable cost. Thus, manufacturing firms integrate sustainability into their approaches. More empirical research is needed to give managers relevant insights into their capacity to deliver sustainable performance in manufacturing firms. TPM has been the most valuable and effective lean manufacturing practice. Different tools and pillars of TPM drive a waste reduction in a manufacturing firm, which aids businesses in lowering non-value-added costs, resulting in financial gains. TPM positively influences profit increase, market value expansion, and functional cost reduction, which are indicators of economic sustainability. TPM uses excellent resource management and preventative breakdown approaches which help reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption, improving the firm's environmental performance. TPM employs preventive maintenance procedures to minimise equipment malfunctions, resulting in fewer accidents at work. It reduces employee injuries and fatalities and provides workers with a healthier and safer working environment. TPM also encourages good employee communication and a quick relationship between superiors and subordinates, improving employees' mental health. TPM aids in the reduction of spillage, leaks, waste, toxic pollutants, and hazardous substance releases, resulting in improved worker's health. Parallelly, Design thinking is an effective and influential tool for considering industries for getting a competitive advantage. It has been rapidly adopted in recent years by industries globally. The sustainability area researchers also explore DT in recent years for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of organisations. DT and sustainability are among the most trending issues in recent times, pressuring organisations to integrate and adopt these practices in the subsisting system. DT is an interdisciplinary approach with multifaceted characteristics, making it vigorous to solve malevolent issues and engender sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs). SOIs truncate the negative impacts on society and the environment and lead to better company performance. SOIs lead the firm to achieve various sustainability dimensions such as economic, social, and environmental. DT positively influences SOIs, and SOIs can lead the firm to practice sustainability. DT has been a highlighted approach for sustainability-related issues. So, it is important to understand how DT contributes to sustainability so that companies don't need to search for different tools or schools of thought for various activities. There has to be some synergy, so the researcher needs to explore if DT can contribute to sustainability. As a means of filling a crucial gap in the literature, this research develops a conceptual framework and presents a preliminary evaluation that managers may use to enhance sustainability performances (SPs) using TPM and DT. To validate the framework, the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique is used. 25 items have been adopted from the literature to measure the constructs used in the conceptual framework. The study used the CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economic) ProwessIQ database to obtain responses via email surveys from Indian manufacturing companies. The responses were gathered between February 10th, 2021 and August 15th, 2021. Overall, 339 responses, individual responses from one firm, from 14 types of companies were received out of 787 emails distributed. The respondents were from different backgrounds, such as senior managers, floor supervisors, TPM and DT consultants, and sustainability practitioners with more than 15 years of experience. A diverse range of companies and respondents from different manufacturing sectors participated in the study. This contributed to reducing biases due to variety. Further, to prioritise the enablers and barriers of TPM and DT in the context of different sustainability indicators to the relevance of this study, Fuzzy TOPSIS, and sensitivity analysis are performed. After selecting the TPM and DT barriers/ enablers and sustainability performances (SPs) indicators from the literature, experts in the relevant field were contacted by email and phone calls. A total of 24 experts from different levels of management were contacted, and 15 of them (with a response rate of 62.5%) were accepted to participate in the study. After that, indicators of various SPs are merged and jumbled up in one table without maintaining their arrangements as per the characteristics (indicators of ECSP, ENSP, and SSP are mixed up) to represent one indexing for SPs. Finally, the ranking of TPM and DT enablers/ barriers has been identified using the Fuzzy TOPSIS method. The findings of the study are as follows: • TPM positively influences all the sustainability performances, such as economic, environmental, and social sustainability performance. • Design Thinking positively influences all the sustainability performances, such as economic, environmental, and social sustainability performance. • Design Thinking positively influences TPM. • TPM partially mediates the relationship between Design Thinking and each sustainability performance. • ‘Top management commitment’ is the top enabler of TPM, which helps TPM to offer more sustainable outcomes. • ‘Lack of expertise at managerial level’ is the top barrier of TPM, which hinders the implementation of TPM. • ‘Capacity to deal with ambiguity and complexity is the top enabler of DT, which helps DT to offer more sustainable outcomes. • ‘Personal understanding of DT’ is the top barrier of DT, which hinders the implementation of DT.