Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance approach that aims to eliminate breakdowns and achieve perfect production. It is a holistic facility management strategy based on the idea that everyone should be involved in maintenance, not just maintenance teams. By increasing proactive maintenance and work order processing and using KPIs for actionable insights, managers can reduce the time they spend problem solving.
As such, the program incorporates the actions and skills of all employees into everyday maintenance activities to reduce maintenance costs and increase profitability. TPM started as a Japanese method for physical asset management, applying the principle of kaizen (continuous improvement) towards improving and maintaining manufacturing.
Total Productive Maintenance originated in Japan between 1950 and 1970, when Seiichi Nakajima developed it. Nippondenso, a company creating parts for Toyota, was one of the first beneficiaries of the TPM process that emerged in 1971.
“Forward-thinking companies are increasingly taking an approach to integrate total productive maintenance with Lean Management and Six Sigma methodologies to drive production efficiency, reduce downtime, eliminate waste, and deliver more value to their customers.”
SimpliLearn
Goals of a Total Productive Maintenance Program
TPM seeks to engage all levels of work within an organization. In practice, this involves ensuring that team members in all functions, from management to engineering to operations and machine operators, share responsibility for maintenance and machine performance.
The main goal is to improve or increase a facility’s Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Performance, Availability, and Quality are all associated losses.
- Performance losses: Running at reduced speed, minor stops
- Availability losses: Breakdowns, product changeovers
- Quality losses: Startup rejects, running rejects
Increasing OEE thus requires reducing or eliminating these losses and, by extension, unplanned downtime. To do this effectively, you need to apply the principles or pillars of TPM holistically. So let’s consider these TPM pillars now.
“The most important factor in the success of Total Productive Maintenance is the buy-in by employees, without whom the initiative will have a false start.”
Lean Factories
TPM Pillars
The pillars of total productive maintenance are:
Autonomous Maintenance
This pillar involves giving machine operators a level of autonomy when it comes to maintenance. Achieving autonomous maintenance requires ensuring your operators have proper training on routine maintenance tasks like cleaning, inspecting, and lubricating assets.
Instead of leaving these activities solely in the hands of the maintenance team, this part of the TPM process encourages workers to take ownership of their equipment. In addition, this process allows maintenance personnel to focus on other, more pressing aspects of equipment maintenance. Finally, operators being proactive in this way can also help reduce equipment failure and, conversely, increase equipment reliability.
Focused Improvement
Focused improvement ties into the lean manufacturing kaizen principle, which involves continuous improvement. Within TPM principles, focused improvement requires teams to look at their overall processes and determine ways to improve them.
This aspect of the TPM methodology should also involve the entire team. In their various functions, all workers should constantly consider improving their processes.
Planned Maintenance
This pillar involves scheduling preventive maintenance activities based on specific metrics and KPIs. For example, a team might look at uptime and downtime patterns and failure rates and schedule maintenance based on anticipated downtime.
This way, you can prevent breakdowns and ensure you complete maintenance work without interrupting the production process.
Quality Maintenance
This stage of a TPM program involves guaranteeing a level of quality management over your maintenance. In other words, you must ensure that your maintenance activities meet specific standards and remain effective. One way to do this is by using root cause analysis to determine where problems originate.
This way, you won’t waste your time with maintenance that has nothing to do with your issues. Also, integrating quality control will help identify defects early to ensure product quality and prevents extra effort if you have to rework the products later.
Early Equipment Management
This stage involves incorporating knowledge about maintenance processes into designing new equipment. In addition, manufacturers should consider the input of workers and stakeholders most involved in equipment operation.
Training and Education
TPM implementation should ensure everyone is on the same page regarding the TPM process and goals. This means developing a workable plan for focused improvement, creating and implementing a planned maintenance schedule, and ensuring operators have all they need for autonomous maintenance. Any time teams use a new technique or tool for the first time, hands on training will help uptake.
Safety, Health, and Environment
When taking any steps in a TPM program, you should consider the safety, health and environment of your workers. Besides being a regulatory requirement, a safe work environment encourages workers to focus on their jobs and give their best. Creating safety checklists and carrying out regular audits can help here.
TPM in Administration
While carrying out TPM on the shop floor and in the factory, don’t forget to look at your administrative processes. Office TPM should include steps to streamline your processes and eliminate waste. MaintainX CMMS, for example, is a software solution that helps to streamline processes, both administratively and on the shop floor.
Speaking of CMMS software, let’s consider how software can help you implement a TPM program.
“The implementation of a TPM program creates a shared responsibility for equipment that encourages greater involvement by plant floor workers. In the right environment this can be very effective in improving productivity (increasing up time, reducing cycle times, and eliminating defects).”
Lean Production
Implementing TPM with a CMMS
If you’re looking to implement a TPM program in your facility, there are some steps you’ll need to take. These include standardizing your processes and tracking your OEE, among others. Computerized Maintenance Management Software can help with these in the following ways.
Standardize Your Processes
To execute a TPM program successfully, you’ll need to establish specific standards for your facility and educate people about them. A CMMS can help you create and store digital standard operating procedures for everything from maintenance to safety. With a mobile CMMS like MaintainX, your staff will have access to your standard operating procedures wherever they are.
Identify a Pilot Area
To get buy-in from your staff for a TPM program, starting with a pilot area is often a good idea. Then, you can demonstrate the program’s potential benefits to your team. To do this, identify areas that are the easiest to improve or the most pressing.
For example, eliminating bottlenecks will create visible results quickly. However, to identify these areas, you’ll need historical data. A CMMS can help you track your data over time, ensuring you know where bottlenecks exist and how assets perform.
Restore Equipment to Prime Operating Condition
This involves continuously using the 5S audit system (organize, cleanliness, orderliness, standardize and sustain) to maintain equipment in its original condition. Whatever approach you take to carrying out these steps, you’ll need to decide on specific methods and assign tasks to different staff members.
With a CMMS, you can automate your work orders, notify staff, and get real-time updates as long as you’re connected to the Internet.
Implement Planned Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is at the heart of what a CMMS can do for your facility management. With a robust CMMS, you can schedule and assign preventive maintenance work orders, get real-time updates from the floor, and track asset performance.
MaintainX CMMS and TPM Pillars
MaintainX offers a range of features that help businesses optimize their maintenance programs. These include automated scheduling and tracking for planned maintenance, SOPs for workflows and safety, and instant chat for team-wide collaboration.
