The new conceptual model for print management: Total production management

This paper presents the development of a conceptual framework for operations management in the printing industry. The implications of using the proposed model (total production management) in a printing press has been analysed thoroughly. A novel conceptual model called 'total production management' has been introduced which is a combination of the best practices: total productive maintenance (TPM) and total quality management (TQM) in conjunction with the human factors (HF) and contextual variables (CV). The study identifies the best practices adopted in the print industry and adopts an integrative approach with socio-technical issues as the addendum. System Dynamics modelling and simulation has been used to study the model performance. Even though the proposed model is in the context of print industry, it can be applied to any manufacturing industry with minor modifications.