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Other information: What Is TPM? - Kaizen introduced the idea that employee expertise generates improvements. The 5S’s suggested a clean and organised workplace will lead to clearer thinking. TPM is all about Total Plant Maintenance. The underlying concept is, if you properly maintain plant machinery there will see a sharp decline in machine breakdowns, safety and quality problems. Under TPM, machine operators carry out routine maintenance such as checking water, oil, coolant, air levels. This may involve some training of machine operators. Through operator training to do simple maintenance on machines will promote ownership and more attention to detail. The actual maintenance teams should as a result of spending less time doing routine maintenance, be in a position to concentrate on more urgent machine breakdowns. TPM should promote better team working in the workplace as the operators will be helping the maintenance team with their tasks. Analyzing existing maintenance against planned maintenance will show that over time the costs for maintaining machines using existing methods keeps increasing, whilst using TPM the intital costs are high as the machine is stopped regularly for maintenance checks, but over time the costs are actually lower as the machine has in the past been maintained. The underlying objective of TPM is to try and bring the machine back as close as possible to it’s new condition. Here are some simple pointers towards developing a regular TPM event:
Successful TPM’s often use photographic models to show how a machine has undergone the TPM process. Often someone with a camera will take pictures of the machine in it’s pre and post TPM stages and display the data on the TPM control board to use as model for other machining areas. The whole emphasis of TPM is to ensure a business maintains its capacity to produce customer requirements. In order to be implemented effectively, your business will have to develop a planned maintenance program with management acceptance of down-times when the machines need servicing. This does go against the traditional view that machines only stops when they breakdown. This is very common in western manufacturing companies, the business has to appreciate that the machine life is extended considerably with regular maintenance. TPM works hand in hand with both Kaizen and the 5S’s. |