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 Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM) evolved from the maintenance practices of the 1950s
and 1960s which emphasized traditional "breakdown maintenance”
activities. The "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy
prevailed in most manufacturing organizations and preventive maintenance was
usually limited to occasional lubrication. Many manufacturers believed
that the cost associated with equipment downtime to perform scheduled
maintenance did not justify the loss of production time. There was no
clear linkage between non-breakdown maintenance activities and long-term
productivity improvement or profitability. Plant personnel defined their
activities and roles as operators and fixers with little in the way of crossover
activities. Although engineering economics and disciplines such as
reliability and maintainability engineering began playing important roles in
American business, maintenance activities in manufacturing industries were still
largely viewed only from the cost side of the profitability equation.
In
the 1970s came the introduction of Productive Maintenance which recognized the
importance of preventive maintenance, reliability engineering, maintainability
engineering, and engineering economics in equipment design and operation.
However, productive maintenance still relied on the traditional roles and
responsibilities of operations and maintenance personnel, and did not focus on
maintenance activities as an integral part of the larger manufacturing or
process system. Enter Total Productive Maintenance.
TPM
principles require active participation by everyone from production workers and
maintenance personnel to engineering departments and top management. TPM
draws from the behavioral sciences as well as the traditional engineering
disciplines in creating a manufacturing environment in which preventive
maintenance activities are viewed as everyone's responsibility. Operators
no longer just operate and call the maintenance department when a breakdown
occurs. They also autonomously perform certain routine preventive
maintenance activities such as cleaning, inspection, lubrication, and running
adjustments. Maintenance personnel are then free to employ their skills on
higher level preventive maintenance activities and overhauls. Everyone
views goals of zero breakdowns, maximizing productivity, and zero product
defects as shared responsibilities.
The
goals of a TPM program include improving equipment and personnel effectiveness,
instituting autonomous maintenance by operators, developing a life-cycle
approach to maintenance, and providing the necessary preventive, diagnostic and
repair skills and techniques to employees. Implementing TPM is not an
overnight endeavor. It may require two years or longer to achieve full
results. Initial program implementation costs include training all
personnel in TPM principles and to perform the new operator maintenance tasks.
Other costs include restoring defective or malfunctioning equipment to proper
working condition. The good news is that a full company-wide
implementation of TPM is not necessary to derive substantial benefits.
Although the cultural aspects of TPM should be promoted throughout the
operations, maintenance, and management organizations, actual implementation of
TPM activities and the measurement of results can be done effectively at an
individual machine or production line level.
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