Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

Transcription

1 Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Abstract Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Is a systematic approach to ensuring that all production equipment and machinery in the company is maintained at optimal operating capacity. Autonomous preventative maintenance is combined with planned maintenance and has the goal of achieving zero breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents. TPM helps the company improve productivity, reduce waste and equipment costs, and contributes to overall business performance and profit. Coleg Sir G â r Beacon Centre for Enterprise

2 Total Productive Maintenance - What is it and where can it be deployed? Introduction All businesses that use machinery and tooling to manufacture their products and deliver their services have the potential to benefit from applying the principles of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). TPM is a philosophy whereby the operation of machinery and/or equipment is kept at its optimal operating capacity. It helps improve productivity, efficiency and reduces wastes: all critical factors in achieving competitiveness and profitability. TPM seeks to engage all employees in the company, at all levels and all job functions, in the maintenance of processes and equipment. It moves the focus away from the traditional maintenance departments in an organization to a position where individual work teams are responsible for day-to-day preventative maintenance. What is it? Total Productive Maintenance is a structured and systematic approach to ensuring that all equipment and machinery used in the manufacture of products in the company operates to its optimum and as close to 100% as possible at all times. The implementation of TPM creates a shared responsibility for equipment that encourages greater involvement of all employees, from management to production workers, in improving productivity and business performance. It has the goal of achieving: No breakdowns No Defects No accidents At production level it involves operators being engaged in proactive and preventative maintenance of their equipment. This is expressed within the traditional 8 pillars of TPM where operators have responsibility for routine maintenance. The 8 pillars of TPM. Source: Industry Forum The first of these pillars shown in this diagram is focused improvement which involves small teams working together to achieve regular incremental improvements in equipment operation. This builds on the foundation of another key lean manufacturing technique designed to maintain a work environment that is clean, well organized and safe. This technique 1

3 is called 5S and consists of five elements: Sort (eliminate anything that is not truly needed in the work area) Set in Order (organize the remaining items) Shine (clean and inspect the work area) Standardize (create standards for performing the above three activities) Sustain (ensure the standards are regularly applied) It will be clear how the 5S activities create a foundation for well-running equipment in a clean well-organised work environment where tools and parts are easy to find, and developing problems easier to spot and rectify as part of the TPM process. How is it introduced? TPM requires effective leadership, management and teamwork. The word Total in TPM means that company management needs to be committed in deploying TPM and the workforce fully engaged in bringing it into being. TPM is a Value Added activity within the business and management need to plan for the resources necessary for successful implementation in the knowledge that this internal investment will be more than met by the benefits gained. The process begins with the gathering of historical data on specific equipment. Knowledge of how the machinery has performed in the past; the running times, failure history, expenditure on parts, etc., is essential in order to plan future maintenance requirements and resources. To introduce TPM there are a number of steps that need to be completed; these may be summarized as; Step 1: Leadership: the company needs to advise the workforce of its intentions and create a collaborative work environment to gain maximum buy in from personnel. The more the employees gain ownership of the improvement process the more they will value and engage with the process. Step 2: Plan for employee training in TPM: plan a structured skills development programme with a training provider to deliver the necessary tools to employees before deployment. Step 3: Develop the teamwork ethos and share information as TPM is successfully deployed across the business. Use the successes to demonstrate the benefits gained by employees in their particular job roles. Step 4: Set SMART goals Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. Make sure that along with responsibility goes the accountability. It is important that all team members can see and value the contributions made by everyone else. Step 5: Draft a deployment plan with input from all appropriate personnel, identify the resources that will be required. Step 6: Start the implementation and start gathering evidence. Agree what the Key Performance Indicators (KPI s) should be and gather the necessary data. This will be used at a later date to ascertain how TPM has benefited the business and determine how it can be refined for further improvements. Step 7: Set project teams with the task of regularly gathering data on pieces of equipment or groups of equipment and develop a plan for incremental improvements linked to the autonomous and planned maintenance. 2

4 Step 8: Utilise other appropriate lean production tools such as 5S in conjunction with TPM to optimise the maintenance resources required to support the new maintenance schedule. Step 9: Look at sharing lessons learned across the business and good practice identified, so that deployment of scheduled preventative maintenance activities becomes the norm. Step 10: Continuous Improvement: plan what is to be done as a team, implement the plan, measure the outcomes, identify opportunities for further improvement. TPM in practice. Source: Coleg Sir Gâr How can it help the employer? TPM helps the employer because it aims to steer the business to a position where products and equipment have as near as possible zero defects and zero break downs. The benefits are clear: 1. Improved productivity through maximum equipment usage; 2. Decrease in the products scrapped and hence a decrease in the waste of raw materials and energy used in parts that prove defective; 3. Increase in longevity of equipment reducing the costs of replacement. The implementation of TPM is likely to be part of a broader strategy for lean production in the business. The integration of TPM with other business improvement tools such as 5S, all of which have synergies and common goals, will lead to mutual reinforcement between the tools during implementation. Improved productivity, increased quality levels and reduced waste will all contribute to profitability and competitiveness. A contribution is therefore made to long term sustainability by a lean production strategy that includes TPM. 3

5 How can it help the employee? Clearly, if TPM as a central component of a business improvement strategy, has the effect of contributing to business performance and long term sustainability, this is of benefit to employees in terms of job security. However, the benefits go further than that for the individual employee. A major emphasis is on teamwork and on employee ownership of quality, efficiency and effectiveness in their own work area and job function. TPM training and implementation will result in valuable skills development, not just in the responsibilities involved in preventative and planned maintenance of equipment, but also in the transferrable skills associated with teamwork, communications, self and process management, etc. Such skills are valued by companies and will allow the employee to both reinforce the importance of the contribution they are making within the workforce as well as gain greater job satisfaction from this being recognized. What is involved in delivering TPM in the workplace? Delivering TPM effectively requires a critical mass of support in the workforce for the area of the business where it is being implemented. This will involve employees at all levels and the nature of the proposed method of working may well involve a culture change across the workplace, as well as the need for individuals to develop new skills. There will be levels of implementation across the functional areas in the organization that link together, but have different contributions to make to the process. It is likely that TPM will have been discussed at management level as part of a lean production strategy planning process. It is also likely that an expert facilitator will have been engaged to guide those discussions; from the initial awareness-raising of techniques, benefits and choices, through to an agreed strategic plan for the company. TPM implementation will be largely centered on the teams and work spaces where the management of the equipment takes place. Training will be provided on TQM principles and practice which the team will undertake together. This will include application in the work area involved and include agreeing systems for equipment performance measurement, operator ownership of equipment performance, and the general team management arrangements. Again, and expert facilitator will guide the team training and development. Part of this, however, will be continuous dialogue with the employees involved to ensure that their specialist expertise and suggestions for the best method of implementation in their area are included in the planning. What resources are required for the training? Typically, the training and implementation will involve a team of employees working in the same work space on a particular aspect of production. The process of training will begin with awareness-raising, followed by more detailed underpinning knowledge covering the principles and practice of TPM. Conventionally, this will be carried out as a group in a room allocated in the workplace. The usual resources needed for a small classroom would be needed including PC and projection facilities, white board, etc. If the learning content was accessed by the employees online in advance, then they would come to the meeting room already familiar with the background to the subject and able to participate immediately in a discussion about how it applies to their workspace. 4

6 Planning TPM delivery The employees and the team they work with will have a good understanding and considerable practical experience of how their equipment and machinery works. They will also be familiar with the existing maintenance processes and schedules for that equipment and how it is managed. Equally, it is likely that they will have a good knowledge of the equipment performance and the maintenance related issues they have to deal with as operators. Their input to the discussion about TPM planning for their work area will therefore be particularly valuable. For this reason, when delivering the use of TPM in a business there are a number actions that can be taken to integrate this knowledge in the training plan: Engage the employees from the outset; use their ideas and knowledge of the business to contextualize the course materials to their workplace. This effectively creating a bespoke module that relates to their work area and job functions and that encourages them to see the benefits, try the techniques and gain ownership of the process. Communicate clearly and concisely; demonstrating how the course materials link directly with their experiences and their working environment. Ensure that employees at all levels can see that this is a company-wide performance improvement initiative and that they, as individuals and members of a team, have a key part to play in its success. The commitment and involvement of management and supervisors in the process needs to be visible. Training resources used by facilitators must be up to date, easily understood and delivered at the appropriate level for the employees engaged in the TPM programme. Conclusion The principles of Total Productive Maintenance aim to place the production operator at the centre of the autonomous and planned maintenance schedules for the equipment they use and are responsible for. As individuals and as members of a work area team that includes supervisors and management, they are best placed to monitor equipment performance, record performance and fault records, and to carry out preventative maintenance. Example: general equipment inspection TPM example. Source: Nippon Denso 5

7 The TPM training provides a systematic framework for the planning and implementation of the technique. It integrates TPM with the other business improvement technique tools that, together, develop a lean production culture across the company. It formalizes much of the localized maintenance activity that is likely to be happening informally anyway as the operators manage their equipment. The focus on achieving zero breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents will clearly improve productivity, save costs by reducing wastes and equipment longevity, and contribute to overall business performance, profitability and competitiveness. This is of benefit both to the company and to the employees. This has been an awareness-raising module designed to introduce Total Productive Maintenance Techniques and inform both managers and employees how its implementation can lead to business performance improvement. More detailed underpinning knowledge that includes a range of case studies illustrating how successful TPM implementation has been achieved by companies in the Automotive sector, is provided in the TPM Techniques Principles and Practice module, accessed through the Resources Tab. 6