TPM benefits and abnormalities

To start let’s go from the basics and first understand what is TPM?

So, TPM is Total Productive Maintenance, which is basically a maintenance strategy used in a manufacturing organization or a firm that involves having your entire production team (both maintenance technicians and a person who operates a machine) actively involved in pushing toward an increase in production uptime and efficiency.

TPM is an innovative idea used by manufacturing organizations that have brought a new revolution in the idea of preventive maintenance which includes productive maintenance, reliability engineering, and maintenance prevention. TPM has an innovative approach to Overall equipment effectiveness lead by the machine operator and team.

The innovative concepts and the profitable results regarding TPM were first implemented by Japan. TPM certification was first received by Toyota. To achieve Just in Time level of service and reliability in Toyota production facility had a philosophy of TPM. Seiichi Nakajima is considered the father of TPM.

Prajwalit- TPM is basically based on a 5S system that is Sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain. Which is the foundation of TPM.

Prashant- TPM has a base foundation of the 5S system but, the 7 pillars supporting them are autonomous maintenance, planned maintenance, kaizen, Quality maintenance, Training, Office TPM, and safety health and environment.

Nimish- TPM is the best program to eliminate waste by improving the operation, efficiency of equipment, and reliability which involves inputs of all the employees to manufacture a product.

Kuldeep- 5s is the base of the TPM program because sort, sustain, set in order, shine and standardize. Maintain discipline and improves efficiency. Under the TPM program, we can have less unplanned maintenance which improves the processing time.

Prajwalit- In TPM we strive to achieve minimalistic breakdown, no small stops, and slow running.

Prashant- I agree with Prajwalit and Kuldeep but, one of the major drawbacks would be the Quality defect.

Nimish- yes, well said by Prashant because process once started without taking any small stops output will be your final product without any breakage/ stoppage in between.

Further, we will discuss the base and & pillars of TPM.

5s (foundation)

As before building a physical structure first grounded framework is important in a similar way TPM process needs a strong foundation. This foundation is the principles of 5S. 5S is a workplace organization that has 5 basic steps Sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain. Keeping the long-term goal 5s can be used to achieve it. 5S needs continuous thinking and different ways to implement it.

5S acts as supporting pillars and is a systematic approach towards TPM.

Kuldeep- There are many benefits of 5S implementation. Manufacturing efficiency can easily be increased through 5S implementation.

Prashant- Even I have seen in the majority of cases how 5S has helped industry/organizations in some aspects.

Prajwalit- For many industry’s 5S implementations might be a difficult process/task at the start, instead, the industry might bring some small change first, and based on that result they may decide to implement 5S or not.

Nimish- 5S implementation have many benefits. To name some safety, Environment pollution can easily be controlled. Productivity will absolutely increase with a decrease in downtime. Quality could be maintained, profit could be increased, higher morale could be achieved.

Autonomous maintenance

Means to maintain activities at an individual level like shop floor workers that includes cleaning of machines, oiling, lubricating, inspection, tightening of nuts and bolts. In simple words, it includes all machine-related activities that aim to increase the life of machine/ productivity life.

Autonomous Maintenance gives every individual responsibility of basic maintenance so that maintenance staff could solve complex problems which others can’t do.

Nimish- Because of every individual’s participation they become more aware/ responsible about machines' condition because they have to work with them every day.

Prashant- Because of this they understand machines more deeply so in this process they develop skills that indirectly benefit everyone.

Kuldeep- Workers because of a better understanding of machines they work with could identify problems that have chances to occur in the future and problems can be corrected before an actual breakdown happens.

Prajwalit- Machines could be operated at optimal/ desired rate because activities that include basic checking is done.

Planned maintenance

As the name suggests it is a planned activity. So planned maintenance is a maintenance activity that is based on observed behavior which can be in the form of breakdown. By planning such activities by observing the pattern of such failures, the cycle of such failures can be broken that will help if a longer service life of the machine.

Prashant- By constantly looking at failure patterns the no of breakdown can gradually be brought down which will help for other productive activities.

Kuldeep- The production department knows when any failure might occur so they continue with their activities uninterrupted.

Prajwalit- Maintenance activities are always carried out when the production floor is not busy so it doesn’t affect production time.

Nimish- Investments done in machinery get reduced and equipment can be used to its maximum potential.

Quality maintenance

As the name suggests it focuses on the quality aspect, so it is that branch of TPM that deals with quality by ensuring that equipment can itself predict/detect any error that could happen. If errors are identified beforehand this makes the process more reliable. Quality maintenance is very much important because it helps to prevent defects and prevents doing the same work twice.

Prashant- One of the benefits is targeted improvement. This helps to deal with a problem that occurs from time to time and gives a permanent solution for it.

Kuldeep- Because of this, the number of defects is minimized.

Prajwalit- By getting the product's quality desirable at the first attempt cost of poor quality reduces.

Nimish- Yes, I agree with prajwalit because we could take preventive action before any occurrence of failure this reduces time and amount for rework.

Kaizen

Kaizen a word for self-improvement that involves every employee and strives to improve continuously. This helps to eliminate waste.

Kuldeep- Basically kaizen is small-small improvements that help to increase productivity.

Prajwalit- Another advantage is improved efficiency.

Prashant- Because everyone is involved this helps to improve the problem-solving skills of workers

Nimish- As prajwalit said, It will help businesses to implement new process improvements.

Training and Education

Training and Education is another pillar of TPM. It focuses on training and educating people so that they could achieve desired results and aims that they strive to achieve.

Kuldeep- Employees learn basic necessary skills which help to solve problems.

Prajwalit- Quality of work also increases which leads to better usage and less breakdown.

Prashant- It increases the capacity to identify problems that help in emergency situations.

Nimish- Gathering all the points from my mates I can conclude that training can have multi-skilled employees in all departments.

Health safety and environment

Health safety and environment are one of the major important aspects. Workers should be carefree about the environment in which they work. This pillar ensures that the environment is safe to work and other conditions are safe.

Nimish- When workers are free from safety thought they can focus more on their work which will increase productivity.

Prajwalit- It includes Elimination of harmful conditions & a healthy workforce.

Prashant- If there is an emergency issue this would help to detect any kind of hazard.

Kuldeep- yes, I agree with them it also Identifies and provides resources to accomplish safety, health, and environmental objectives.

Office TPM

Office TPM is identified as the seventh pillar and concentrates on all areas that focus on administrative and support functions in the organization. This pillar mainly focuses on eliminating waste and losses.

Kuldeep- It ensures that processes act according to optimization and are completed at optimal cost.

Prajwalit-It helps by eliminating loss in an organization and in the supply chain as well.

Prashant- I do agree with prajwalit’s statement because this helps in reducing cost.

Nimish- It also benefits by developing support that is flexible as per demand and thus can have a strong image in the market.

Now we will discuss some abnormalities of TPM.

Kuldeep- Yes, so abnormalities of TPM are product change over, staff shortage, a material shortage that would result in setup loss, and minor adjustment.

Prashant- I would like to add that, due to jams, adjustments, blocked sensing devices minor stoppages might occur.

Prajwalit- So, due to poor setting and alignment slow running can occur.

Nimish- so, we conclude that TPM has many benefits but few abnormalities are there if not implemented correctly. We discussed that how TPM implementation will lead to increased productivity, safety environment, improved structure, and how TPM can lead to a quality defect. It is a highly competitive scenario.

Kuldeep- TPM can prove to a global strategy that can lead the organization to a new scale achievement and could make difference between the success and failure of the organization.

Thus, to conclude this is our understanding about TPM along with some basic information to give some context from the internet and books to understand the concept and then our whole addition of points for better understanding.

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