TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) and It’s 8 Pillars

“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” by John F. Kennedy.

What is Total Productive Maintenance?

The full form of TPM is Total productive maintenance is one of the basic blocks of any lean manufacturing implementation; at last, it’s not possible to enhance our processes if we can’t depend on our equipment and machines. Integrated with 5S; Total Productive Maintenance gives an organizational basis on which to construct feasible improvements to our business.

TPM refers to the concept that operators are responsible for cleaning, maintaining, and improving their workstations to ensure safety and quality during production cycles.

Total productive maintenance is a complete system for equipment maintenance that aims at attaining an optimal production environment without any defects, breakdown, downtime & accidents. TPM highlights preventative & proactive maintenance to amplify the operational efficiency of equipment which leads to increased productivity, improve quality, lower costs, and extended machine lifespan. 

It blurs the difference between the normal operators and maintenance staff by highlighting empowering operators to help maintain their equipment. TPM was introduced by Seiichi Nakajima in the 1950s and 1970s. Nippon Denso was the first company who implemented TPM.

The implementation of a TPM program generates a shared duty for equipment that motivates more engagement via means of plant floor workers. TPM engages all employees in the effort to eliminate waste by improving the operation, reliability, and efficiency of equipment used to manufacture products. TPM shifts the responsibility of routine and preventative maintenance from the maintenance team to the operators who work with the equipment. This puts the people most familiar with the equipment in charge of making sure it runs at peak performance.

Six Big Losses in TPM

TPM is a lean transformation tool that finds to enhance the safety and efficiencies of our equipment and machines by involving everyone in the organization to tackle what is known as the six big losses – the most common causes of lost productivity in manufacturing which are measured through the performance indicator known as OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). OEE is a metric that measures how productive a process is against the expected productivity of that process. You can check out Learn Transformation’s another article for complete detail of OEE.

One of the main aims of TPM is to reduce the six big losses which are:

1. Breakdowns Loss

Sudden, unexpected, or dramatic equipment abortion that makes the machine much less available. Contributing factors include Electrical system failures, Major mechanical failures, Structural failure. For eg-. Fan belt breakage, tool failures, motor breakdown.

2. Setup & Adjustment Losses

When production of one-part finishes and the equipment is adjusted to satisfy the needs of another component then downtime and faulty products occur. SMED is used for decreasing the effects of this loss. The degree of loss depends on factors such as Operator skill level, process standards, Tooling consistency, and quality.

3. Idling and Minor Stoppages

When production in business transformation is interrupted via means of temporary malfunction or whilst the machine is idling. Generally, it includes stops that are less than 5 minutes and that don’t need maintenance personnel. Contributing elements include Operator on a different machine or different tasks, defective products that bring the about shut line down, disturbance of production flow, loss of product or raw material, tools.

4. Reduced Speed

 t refers to the difference between equipment design speed and the actual operating speed. Some components might not be capable of a run at a machine’s maximum rate. Factors include: Risk of making unacceptable parts at higher speed, mechanical problems.

5. Defects and Rework

 When losses in quality are a result of malfunctioning equipment. The degree of loss depends on factors such as Raw Material, tooling, maintenance of equipment.

6. Start-up Losses

It occurs before the process starts in earnest- from machine start-up, warm-up, “learning phase” to point where it is making regular, quality production. The degree of loss during transformation depends on factors such as Maintenance of equipment, Operator skill level, tooling.

Benefits of TPM

• Safer work environment.
• Fewer work stoppages due to unplanned maintenance time.
• Reduced costs.
• Increased output and product quality.

Eight Pillars Of TPM

Total Productive Maintenance is a program for increasing the efficiency of machines and processes which stands on eight pillars with 5S as its foundation.

5S Foundation

5S is a Japanese tool that become evolved by Toyota as part of their lean production system. 5S is an improvement tool for organizing & maintaining a disciplined, clean and productive workplace. It helps to create a better working VUCA environment, reduces waste while improving efficiency & quality. 5S represents five simple practices that begin with the letter ‘S’ which are: Sort, Setting in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain. In Japanese, these are referred to as seiri, seitan, serious, seiketsu, and shitsuke.

1. Sort: is the first step of the 5S. It refers to the practice of sorting all the mess & clutter within the workplace while keeping only what is required for effective lean transformation. To find the value of each item, ask yourself:

O What is the purpose of this item?
O Why is it here?
O How often is it used?
O Who uses it?

2. Setting in Order: After the unnecessary clutter has gone, you can rearrange the required items so that anyone can locate & access them easily. It defines where & how the items to perform the work should be arranged. This step guarantees that every single object has its vicinity and those items go back to their vicinity.

3. Shine: Shine additionally aims of producing a clean workplace without rubbish, dirt, or dust. It includes a thorough cleaning of the work area, all the systems, the tools to be used, machines & equipment to be used in the manufacturing unit of the company. This will permit smooth identification of abnormalities in Total Productive Maintenance which include repeat contamination earlier than the problem gets worse. Shining additionally enables in developing ownership of the work area making it more secure & pleasant to work in.

4. Standardize – It makes sure that whatever work was performed in the first 3 steps is now standardized accordingly. Turn one-time efforts into habits.

5. Sustain: Once the first four phases have been implemented, you must now focus on Sustaining what has been achieved. This stage involves housekeeping & auditing of the processes and tools and equipment. It is throughout this stage that the work routine turns into a culture and boosts quality transformation. It is by far the most difficult part to implement.

8 Pillars

Once a high degree of solidity is generated with the 5S, a corporation can begin enforcing the Total Productive Maintenance principles in earnest. The 8 pillars of TPM are usually targeted at proactive and preventative strategies for enhancing equipment reliability. TPM intends to decrease downtime because of maintenance and maximizes system uptime.

1. Autonomous Maintenance (Jishu Hozen)

Autonomous Maintenance puts the responsibility of basic maintenance activities on the hands of the operators for cleaning, lubricating, inspecting, and maintaining the machines and equipment they work with every day.

How does it Help?

• It motivates employees by giving operators greater ownership of their equipment.

• Increases operators’ understanding of their equipment.

• Frees up maintenance personnel to work on more pressing matters.

• Downtime is reduced due to the fact there may be no need of waiting for maintenance staff.

• Ensures equipment is well-wiped clean and lubricated.

• Identifies emergent issues before they become failures in VUCA.

Benefits of Autonomous Maintenance:

• Reduce the performance loss.

• Skill levels of workers increased.

• Machines perform at their best level because basic maintenance such as cleaning & lubrication is completed more regularly during the process of transformation.

• Operators become more accountable and bothered about the situation of equipment.

• Problems are identified and corrected earlier than they go out of control.

2. Planned Maintenance

Planned or preventive maintenance is performed on schedules that are based on the observed behavior of machines like predicted measured equipment failure rates. Planned maintenance takes into consideration the age of the machine and how much it is utilized which is important for quality transformation. The breakdown cycle and failure is broken by scheduling these activities around such metrics, 

How does it help?

• Notably reduces instances of unplanned stop time.

• Production is hardly ever interrupted as these activities are scheduled across the time whilst they’re idle.

• Reduces inventory through better control of wear-prone & failure-prone parts.

Benefits of Planned Maintenance:

• Production functions can continue with their activities uninterrupted because they know exactly when maintenance in business transformation will take place.

• Reduction in breakdown.

• Capital investments in machinery are reduced as the equipment is utilized to its fullest potential.

• Increase in production uptime.

3. Quality Maintenance

This pillar involves monitoring machine performance to detect and prevent equipment errors during operation. Using lean tools such autonomation (jidoka) and andon, machines come across and record any abnormal conditions, so releasing up the operators from the dull monitoring. When errors happen, do a root cause analysis to identify and eliminate the problem.

How does it help?

• Reduces the number of defects.

• Reduces cost by catching defects early.

Benefits of Quality Maintenance:

• Reduces the poor-quality wastes & rework.

• Defects are minimized or eliminated.

• It reduces the cost of quality by getting quality right the first time.

4. Focused Improvement (Kobetsu Kaizen)

In this pillar, Small teams of stakeholders are made to analyze production activities so they can identify and eliminate anything that does not add value to the process or the final product. This method is meant to continuously improve equipment operation to boost the process of lean transformation.

How does it work?

• Repeating problems are identified and resolved by cross-functional teams.

• Integrates the joint talents of a company to generate an engine for continuous improvement.

Benefits of Focused Improvement:

• Quick gains are made which helps in fostering the lean methodology to workers who may not have bought into the program.

• Improving safety performance by decreasing risk factors.

Also See- What is Traditional Thinking V/S Lean Thinking?

5. Early Equipment Maintenance

Design improvements are made to equipment using the experience and knowledge gained from previous production and maintenance activities. Working with a multitude of stakeholders such as suppliers, the corporation is capable of hitting the floor running with highly secure and effective equipment. Such an approach has a good effect on the profitability of the company as maintenance costs are fiercely decreased in organization transformation.

How does it help?

• New equipment reaches deliberate overall performance levels a lot faster because of fewer startup issues.

• Maintenance is less difficult and extra strong because of realistic evaluation and employee engagement previous to installation.

Benefits of this Pillar:

• Capable to produce huge product volume with good product quality.

• Using the input from the people who use these machines regularly, suppliers of the equipment can enhance the maintainability and operability of the subsequent new releases of their products.

6. Education and Training

This pillar is bothered about filling the knowledge gap that exists in an organization when it comes to total productive maintenance strategy. All employees from senior management to operators require to be trained in TPM approaches. Lack of knowledge in the tools can result in improper implementation leading to average results at best and failure at worst. Without proper training, tools such as Total Productive Maintenance can be misunderstood by the staff which can result in hilarious outcomes for the company. Making sure that employees are trained gives the organization a secure pool of knowledgeable staff that can drive the initiative competently.

How does it help?

• Maintenance personnel learns techniques for preventative & proactive maintenance.

• Operators develop skills to regularly maintain equipment & find emerging problems.

• Managers are educated on TPM ideas in addition to employee coaching and development.

Benefits of Training & Education:

• With training, we can have multitalented employees.

• Through training, operators’ skills levels are raised to the point where they are capable of carry-out primary maintenance activities that had been formerly the preserve of maintenance staff.

7. Health, Safety & Environment

A safe and healthy work environment in VUCA for all employees is a condemning aspect of TPM. This pillar of Total Productive Maintenance ensures that all workers are provided with an environment that is safe and that all conditions that are harmful to their well-being are removed. Safe and healthy workers have better attitudes and are more productive. Providing a safe VUCA work environment helps to keep the workplace accident-free. The cross-functional groups will work closer to making machines secure to apply by the operators by putting in place such features as guards, works standards, use of personal protective equipment, and first-aid kits in the work area. 

How does it help?

• Eliminates possible health and safety risks, resulting in a more secure workplace.

• Particularly targets the goal of an accident-free workplace.

Benefits of This Pillar:

• Motivates the employees.

• Enhance feasibility within the organization.

• Create a powerful and efficient work environment.

8. TPM in Administration

TPM principles should extend beyond the production floor. Office workers, administrators, and managers can apply TPM techniques in the office to increase productivity and reduce waste. As these are supportive functions, making them apprehend and observe the principles of lean in their operations makes it easy for them to provide efficient service to the main value-creating processes.

How does it work?

• Extends TPM benefits past the shop floor through addressing waste in administrative functions.

• Supports manufacturing thru enhanced administrative operations (e.g. order processing, procurement, and scheduling).

Benefits of this pillar:

• Reduced administration & cost.

• Better used work area.

• Reduction in customer complaints due to logistics.

As we finish with this pillar, it is essential to be aware that each has its role in the greater scheme of things and should be employed at a suitable time.

While every TPM pillar may be applied as a stand-alone component, the goal must be to sequentially enforce each of the pillars as a way to get the full benefits of an entire system in transformation.

Check out the Video-

Implementation Of TPM

TPM techniques can’t be implemented just in one night. Adequate planning and some patience are needed to get things up and running. Step by step implementation is important if there are to be any real gains available from the program and every step have to be applied sequentially for maximum effect.

The following are five steps to implement TPM methodologies.

1. Identify Pilot Area–

The first step is to identify the pilot area. Don’t try to change the complete plant to TPM all at once. Rather than, select a small pilot area that will benefit from TPM activities. For instance, you would possibly start in a place with older machines or that reports common breakdowns. Get an idea of what may be performed to the present equipment and compare whether or not new pilot equipment may be used.

Here are few extra guidelines:

• For an organization with restrained TPM experience, the fine desire is normally the easiest to Improve equipment.

• For a company with moderate or strong TPM experience, the best choice is almost always the Constraint/Bottleneck equipment. The key is to reduce possible risk by developing temporary stock.

• Teams often move to select the most problematic equipment. This, however, is rarely the best choice.

Selecting the pilot equipment for the Total Productive Maintenance project should consequently be a balance between the recognized benefits and the cost of failure. It is always better, to begin with, less critical equipment and then switch to the more critical machines.0

2. Restore Equipment to Prime Operating Condition-

Train the people who will be using the equipment to restore existing equipment to optimal working conditions. Machines and equipment are returned to their basic condition through a thorough 5S program integrated with autonomous maintenance as discussed above.

Once the 5S program has been performed satisfactorily, the operators and maintenance staff will then begin an autonomous maintenance project. An autonomous maintenance program will achieve a lot if done correctly and normally takes the following format:

• Inspection Point: Find and record key inspection points. Consider generating a map of inspection points as a visible aid.

• Visualize the ideal settings of gauges and meters by marking the machines – for instance, a pressure gauge can be marked green to show the acceptable reading and red to indicate out-of-spec conditions.

• Lubrication points: Find & document all lubrication points and make the lubricating of machines simpler thru changes which include an extension of oiling nozzles. This will reduce the downtime associated with such activities ultimately leading to beneficial lean transformation.

• Operator Training: Train operators for reporting abnormalities and encourage a culture of always addressing problems before they get out of control.

• Create autonomous maintenance standards and checklists that will be used by the operators to check for the most important tasks that need to do on machines such as lubrication and inspection points.

3. Measure Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE)-

Total Productive Maintenance consists of exploring methods to boost overall equipment efficiency (OEE). This is important to identify the biggest causes of downtime on critical machines. OEE is a measure of how well equipment is operating as compared to its complete potential, its availability, and its scheduled operating time. OOE metrics are used to track progress towards the goal of perfect production.

4. Address & Reduce Major Losses-

Overall equipment efficiency uses the Six Big Losses categories to measure common causes of lost productivity. The TPM technique labeled “Focused Improvement” can be used to analyze and why these losses happen and locate the best solutions.

Addressing the major losses based on the data involves:

• Choosing a cross-functional team from a broad section of the workforce based on the level of experience.

• Data analysis of the major losses as gathered from the OEE data.

• Root cause analysis of why the losses occurred in the first place. This is done by asking why five or more times until you get to the real cause of the problem.

• Implementation of suggested solutions within a time frame.

5. Apply Proactive Maintenance–

One of the essential TPM principles is proactive maintenance—regular, planned maintenance that is conducted by the people who operate the machinery. This gives employees a better knowledge of what is required to keep the machine running at peak performance.

Applying TPM principles can impact your productivity, workplace safety, and processes. When integrated with other frameworks and practices, like Lean manufacturing and the 5S methodology, TPM can enhance your workplace surroundings.

Frequently Asked Questions-

1) What are 8 pillars of TPM?

Eight Pillars Of TPM are:

1. Autonomous Maintenance (Jishu Hozen)
2. Planned Maintenance
3. Quality Maintenance
4. Focused Improvement (Kobetsu Kaizen)
5. Early Equipment Maintenance
6. Education and Training
7. Health, Safety & Environment
8. TPM in Administration

2) What are the pillars of TPM and what do they represent?

Once a high degree of solidity is generated with the 5S, a corporation can begin enforcing the Total Productive Maintenance principles in earnest. The 8 pillars of TPM are usually targeted at proactive and preventative strategies for enhancing equipment reliability. TPM intends to decrease downtime because of maintenance and maximizes system uptime.

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