TPM award

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

What is TPM?

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program which involves a newly defined concept for maintaining direct/indirect workshops and equipment. The goal of the TPM program is to continuously increase productivity while, at the same time, increasing employee morale and job satisfaction.

TPM brings maintenance into focus as an important part of the business. It is no longer regarded as a non-profit activity. Down time for maintenance is scheduled as a part of the manufacturing day and, in some cases, as an integral part of the manufacturing process. The goal is to hold emergency and unscheduled maintenance to a minimum.

Why TPM?

TPM was introduced to achieve the following objectives. The important ones are listed below.

Avoid wastes in a quickly changing economic environment.
Producing goods without reducing product quality.
Reduce cost.
Produce a low batch quantity.
Products send to the customers must be non-defective.

TPM - History:

TPM is an innovative Japanese concept. The origin of TPM can be traced back to 1951 when preventive maintenance was introduced in Japan. However the concept of preventive maintenance was taken from USA. Nippondenso was the first company to introduce plant wide preventive maintenance in 1960. Preventive maintenance is the concept wherein, operators produced goods using machines and the maintenance group was dedicated with work of maintaining those machines, however with the automation of Nippondenso, maintenance became a problem as more maintenance personnel were required. So the management decided that the routine maintenance of equipment would be carried out by the operators. (This is Autonomous maintenance, one of the features of TPM). Maintenance group took up only essential maintenance works.

Thus Nippondenso which already followed preventive maintenance also added Autonomous maintenance done by production operators. The maintenance crew went in the equipment modification for improving reliability. The modifications were made or incorporated in new equipment. This lead to maintenance prevention. Thus preventive maintenance along with Maintenance prevention and Maintainability Improvement gave birth to Productive maintenance. The aim of productive maintenance was to maximize plant and equipment effectiveness to achieve optimum life cycle cost of production equipment.

By then Nippon Denso had made quality circles, involving the employee’s participation. Thus all employees took part in implementing Productive maintenance. Based on these developments Nippondenso was awarded the distinguished plant prize for developing and implementing TPM, by the Japanese Institute of Plant Engineers (JIPM). Thus Nippondenso became the first company to obtain the TPM certification.

TPM Targets:

P
Obtain Minimum 80% OPE.
Obtain Minimum 90% OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness)
Run the machines even during lunch. (Lunch is for operators and not for machines!)

Q
Operate in a manner, so that there are no customer complaints.

C
Reduce the manufacturing cost by 30%.
D
Achieve 100% success in delivering the goods as required by the customer.

S
Maintain an accident free environment.

M
Increase the suggestions by 3 times. Develop Multi-skilled and flexible workers.

Pillars or Principles of TPM

The eight pillars of TPM are mostly focused on proactive and preventative techniques for improving equipment reliability.

Pillar	What Is It?	How Does It Help?
Autonomous Maintenance	Places responsibility for routine maintenance, such as cleaning, lubricating, and inspection, in the hands of operators.	- Gives operators greater “ownership” of their equipment. - Increases operators’ knowledge of their equipment. - Ensures equipment is well-cleaned and lubricated. - Identifies emergent issues before they become failures. - Frees maintenance personnel for higher-level tasks.
Planned Maintenance	Schedules maintenance tasks based on predicted and/or measured failure rates.	- Significantly reduces instances of unplanned down time. - Enables most maintenance to be planned for times when equipment is not scheduled for production. - Reduces inventory through better control of wear-prone and failure-prone parts.
Quality Maintenance	Design error detection and prevention into production processes. Apply root cause analysis to eliminate recurring sources of quality defects.	- Specifically targets quality issues with improvement projects focused on removing root sources of defects. - Reduces number of defects. - Reduces cost by catching defects early (it is expensive and unreliable to find defects through inspection).
Focused Improvement	Have small groups of employees work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements in equipment operation.	- Recurring problems are identified and resolved by cross-functional teams. - Combines the collective talents of a company to create an engine for continuous improvement.
Early Equipment Management	Directs practical knowledge and understanding of manufacturing equipment gained through TPM towards improving the design of new equipment.	- New equipment reaches planned performance levels much faster due to fewer startup issues. - Maintenance is simpler and more robust due to practical review and employee involvement prior to installation.
Training and Education	Fill in knowledge gaps necessary to achieve TPM goals. Applies to operators, maintenance personnel and managers.	- Operators develop skills to routinely maintain equipment and identify emerging problems. - Maintenance personnel learn techniques for proactive and preventative maintenance. - Managers are trained on TPM principles as well as on employee coaching and development.
Safety, Health, Environment	Maintain a safe and healthy working environment.	- Eliminates potential health and safety risks, resulting in a safer workplace. - Specifically targets the goal of an accident-free workplace.
TPM in Administration	Apply TPM techniques to administrative functions.	- Extends TPM benefits beyond the plant floor by addressing waste in administrative functions. - Supports production through improved administrative operations (e.g. order processing, procurement, and scheduling).