Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program which involves a newly defined concept for maintaining plants and equipment. The goal of the TPM program is to markedly increase production while, at the same time, increasing employee morale and job satisfaction. The TPM program closely resembles the popular Total Quality Management (TQM) program. Many of the same tools such as employee empowerment, benchmarking, documentation, etc. are used to implement and optimize TPM. This paper will define TPM in some detail, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses as a maintenance philosophy, and discuss implementation procedures. Examples of successfully implemented programs will be presented.
I. What is Total Productive Maintenance?
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program concept. Philosophically, TPM resembles Total Quality Management (TQM) in several aspects, such as:
TPM brings maintenance into focus as a necessary and vitally 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. It is no longer simply squeezed in whenever there is a break in material flow. The goal is to hold emergency and
unscheduled maintenance to a minimum.
II. When and where did TPM originate?
TPM evolved from TQM, which evolved as a direct result of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s influence on Japanese industry. Dr. Deming began his work in Japan shortly after World War II. As a statistician, Dr. Deming initially began to show the Japanese how to use statistical analysis in manufacturing and how to use the resulting data to control quality during manufacturing. The initial statistical procedures and the resulting quality control concepts fueled by the Japanese work ethic soon became a way of life for Japanese industry. This new manufacturing concept eventually became knows as Total Quality Management or TQM.
When the problems of plant maintenance were examined as a part of the TQM program, some of the general concepts did not seem to fit or work well in the maintenance environment. Preventative maintenance (PM) procedures had been in place for some time and PM was practiced in most plants. Using PM techniques, maintenance schedules designed to keep machines operational were developed. However, this technique often resulted in machines being over-serviced in an attempt to improve production. The thought was often “if a little oil is good, a lot should be better.” Manufacturer’s maintenance schedules had to be followed to the letter with little thought as to the realistic requirements of the machine. There was little or no involvement of the machine operator in the maintenance program and maintenance personnel had little training beyond what was contained in often inadequate maintenance manuals.
The need to go further than just scheduling maintenance in accordance with manufacturer’s recommendations as a method of improving productivity and product quality was quickly recognized by those companies who were committed to the TQM programs. To solve this problem and still adhere to the TQM concepts, modifications were made to the original TQM concepts. These modifications elevated maintenance to the status of being an integral part of the overall quality program.
The origin of the term “Total Productive Maintenance” is disputed. Some say that it was first coined by American manufacturers over forty years ago. Others contribute its origin to a maintenance program used in the late 1960’s by Nippondenso, a Japanese manufacturer of automotive electrical parts. Seiichi Nakajima, an officer with the Institute of Plant Maintenance in Japan is credited with defining the concepts of TPM and seeing it implemented in hundreds of plants in Japan.
Books and articles on TPM by Mr. Nakajima and other Japanese as well as American authors began appearing in the late 1980’s. The first widely attended TPM conference held in the United States occurred in 1990. Today, several consulting companies routinely offer TPM conferences as well as provide consulting and coordination services for companies wishing to start a TPM program in their plants.
by Jack Roberts, Ph.D. Source from TPMONLINE.COM
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Time May 11, 2009 at 11:40 pm
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