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How does TPM relate to Lean Manufacturing? Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is really about applying Lean Manufacturing to the way we care for our equipment. TPM is an important part of our Lean Manufacturing initiative, because without it we will experience difficulty as we improve the flow of materials through the introduction of pull systems and the elimination of waste between the steps in our process.

Fundamentally, TPM is about applying flow, takt, standard work and pull systems to the way we maintain and care for our equipment. It is a culture change in the way people care for equipment that is much more than marking, labeling, cleaning machines, or operators doing maintenance work. Total Productive Maintenance is an equipment and process improvement strategy that links many of the elements of a good maintenance program to achieve higher levels of equipment effectiveness. It includes a set of techniques pioneered by Denso in the Toyota Group in Japan, to ensure that each machine in our production process is always able to perform its required tasks.

The approach is called “total” in 4 main areas:

Total Participation supported by “Total” Leadership. Firstly TPM requires the total participation of all employees, not only maintenance personnel but line managers, manufacturing engineers, quality experts and operators. This involves everyone knowing their exact roles and responsibilities, and then executing those roles reliably, on a daily basis. For operators this will involve well developed checklists and simple maintenance tasks set out every shift. We will need to ensure that abnormalities are recorded and reported promptly to maintenance personnel for repair. The maintenance technicians will be required to look for ways to eliminate those problems and at least establish PM’s to ensure the problem does not reoccur. Engineering will be required to aid maintenance in ongoing equipment improvement. And managers will provide the discipline in the system by ensuring relevant metrics are collected and channeled into the problem solving process.

Total Productivity. Secondly TPM is aiming for total productivity of equipment by focusing on the six machine losses: breakdowns, changeovers, minor stops, speed losses, scrap and rework. Years of experience and measuring at Toyota has shown that up to 1/3 of all production downtime is caused by simple limit or proximity switch confirmation failures. Our aim should be to eliminate all production “downtime” and at least as a stopgap aim for “single minute maintenance”- less than 10 minutes for any breakdown.

Total Lifecycle. Thirdly TPM addresses reliability throughout the total life cycle of the equipment to revise maintenance practices, preventative maintenance intervals, activities and improvements depending on where the equipment is in its life cycle. TPM includes daily maintenance by operators, namely simple checking and lubrication that results in early detection and fixing of problems. This aspect is probably one of the most significant aspects of TPM. This may involve more widespread use of “Condition Monitoring”. Specialists become involved to carry out “machine kaizen” or corrective maintenance. At Toyota this is the result of detailed studies over the whole life of the equipment to see where time, spare parts and dollars have been consumed, all in the search of maintenance prevention.

Total Systems approach. TPM also includes a focus on the whole system with a constant effort to improving all aspects of the equipment lifecycle, pursuit of efficiency and participation by everyone. This includes linking and improving all support activities eg employee training and development, spare parts management, document control, maintenance data collection and analysis, and feedback to equipment vendors.

Unlike traditional reactive and preventative maintenance, which relies on maintenance personnel, TPM involves operators in routine maintenance, improvement projects and simple repairs. This would typically include daily activities such as lubrication, cleaning, tightening and inspecting equipment.

In this way, for those of us with equipment centric processes, TPM is an important part of Lean Manufacturing.

Adapted from Robert M Williamson - Strategic Work Systems and the Lean Lexicon - Lean Enterprise Institute

Recently Efficiency Works exhibited at the 2008 Queensland Manufacturing Technology Exhibition (QMan) held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre from October 21-23.  During the exhibition we met many new people interested in Lean Manufacturing and refreshed some existing acquaintances.  During the exhibition many visitors listened to a range of interesting speakers.

The keynote speaker was Andrew Smith from the University of Ballarat who presented the findings from a research project completed for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). The research project is called “To have and to hold: Retaining and utilising skilled people” and covers the issues companies should be focusing on in order to attract and retain good staff.  The findings highlighted the importance of creating the right learning environment and in particular the need to provide nationally recognised training similar to the Lean Manufacturing training available through Efficiency Works.

The full report can be found at www.ncver.edu.au/research/proj/nr06004.pdf

There are many benefits of lean manufacturing. While lean manufacturing started out as a concept in the car manufacturing industry, it has grown and progressed a lot over time. Now essentially any manufacturing process can incorporate the lean manufacturing concept into their business. It makes no difference if your company provides a product or a service. Lean manufacturing is about improving the flow of information and materials through the business and throughout the process. The end result creates a smoother flow of work and shortens lead times for the customer. The overall manufacturing costs are reduced and more waste is eliminated. If your business producing something meant for a customer, the lean manufacturing process can be incorporated to improve the efficiency of the entire business.

Lean manufacturing has a lot of benefits for everyone involved but the three most important benefits of lean manufacturingg are as follows:

1.    Reducing lead times

2.    Reducing costs

3.    Creating extra capacity within the business

Because everything is done more efficiently through the lean manufacturing process, the lead times for customers are reduced. This is a benefit for the company as well because cash that is used to purchase new materials can be invoiced to the customer in a more expedient manner. Additionally, the cost reductions can be passed on to the customer, which keeps the company competitive in the industry. As the company becomes more streamlined and organized throughout its entire manufacturing process – from order to delivery - there becomes more capacity for growth. The business that is able to grow and offer competitive rates benefits greatly. The customer who receives the product or service in a faster time period and for less cost is likely to stay a customer.

Lean manufacturing is not a difficult concept to learn. One of the biggest problems people is experience is caused by management’s lack of understanding and supporting a lean program. Without sufficient support from the organization’s senior management, it is likely that a lean program will not work unless everyone is on board and taking the time to understand what the concept is all about. Management’s lack of support trickles on down to the floor people, who are actually supposed to be working the process. Unless an organization is willing to put forth the time and the effort to truly incorporate the lean manufacturing process into the company, it will not be easily accomplished and they may miss out on the benefits of lean manufacturing.