What Is Total Productive Maintenance?
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Total Productive Maintenance, which is often referred to as TPM initially surfaced within the Japanese motor industry some 50 years ago and is a very standard means of maintenance in heavy manufacturing and automotive.
In a sense it is very different to western methods of maintenance, which is roughly divided into cyclical maintenance, where equipment is tested every 6 months or every year and then serviced to keep it in good shape. Then we use routine maintenance where something is mended when it is not working properly. Usually these tasks are undertaken by experts in their field; we would not expect them to be done by a machine operator or person involved in production.
However, within TPM this is the base line; operators are trained up so that they can perform a whole host of fault finding activities and they can perform maintenance on their equipment, even before it breaks down fully. The machine or piece of equipment becomes the sole responsibility of just one person or even one team. In a sense the machine is their ‘baby’ and they have to look after it, nurture it etc.
They work on the principle of ‘Zero Fails’ so that the machine should never actually fail, that is the overriding desire. If they are trained appropriately and carry out their tasks well, then there will be no breakdowns and more to the point, there is no need to take the machine out of operation for long periods for servicing etc. This improves uptime ie the amount of time that machinery is productive and as such will ensure that productivity is maximised.
TPM and Lean
TPM is very much intertwined with Lean manufacturing and there is an emphasis on getting it right first time, which requires staff to be trained to a very high level in terms of how they can maintain the equipment, because before they can maintain it they will have to understand how it works and be competent to carry out repairs. This can be a lengthy process because many of the items of equipment or machinery are extremely complex and sophisticated; this is not about giving operators a screwdriver and getting them to give machinery a knock. This is about highly skilled maintenance.
TPM is very much a proactive form of maintenance. It is completely contrary to the old saying ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. TPM does not wait until something is broken, but makes sure it never breaks in the first place. One of the fundamental principles of TPM is that there should be: zero error (errors should not happen that could affect the productivity of the machinery or equipment), zero work related accidents and zero loss (the loss refers to loss of working time and the loss of any productivity time).
TPM requires something of a culture shift within organizations, simply because operators are no longer seen as having one role, they cross the line from being ‘just’ an operator and become something of a technical expert as well. This can bring objections from those who previously carried out maintenance, whose role is obviously significantly diminished.
However advocates of TPM advise that through increasing the responsibility held by the operators, by ensuring that they are able further skilled and by trusting them to carry out the maintenance, equipment is kept almost continuously serviced and breaks down far less frequently than if traditional maintenance methods are used. This makes it a highly efficient and effective way of undertaking maintenance and it can help organizations save money at the same time.