Total Productive Maintenance

Total Productive Maintenance- Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is productive maintenance undertaken by every employee through small group activities. TPM is equipment maintenance performed across the organization.

TPM maximizes the productivity of equipment by predicting and preventing unplanned downtime. TPM is one of the critical building blocks in the lean continuous improvement process, which can increase a machine’s capacity, reduce maintenance costs, eliminate overtime shifts drastically and increase productivity and profits for the company. These benefits of TPM enable lower inventory levels as no need to cover unplanned downtime.

It reduces the roles of production and maintenance by focusing on empowering operators to help maintain their equipment. The implementation of a TPM program creates a shared responsibility for equipment encouraging greater involvement by plant floor workers and can be very effective in improving productivity by increasing up time, reducing cycle times and eliminating defects.

Nine Essentials of TPM

• Self-maintained workplace
• Elimination of the 6 big losses
• Zero Breakdowns
• Zero Defects 
• Optimal life and availability of tools
• Self-improvement
• Short production-development time and low machine life cost
• Productivity in indirect departments
• Zero Accidents
  • TPM Principles

TPM focuses on employees to achieve maintenance-free operations and is achieved by implementing of following three practices:

• Development of TPM pillars
• Prevention of big losses
• Measuring and monitoring OEE

The traditional approach to TPM was developed in the 1960s and consists of 5S as a foundation and eight supporting activities also called pillars.

Eight Pillars of TPM 

The eight pillars of TPM consists of:

• Autonomous Maintenance
• Continuous Improvement
• Planned Maintenance
• Quality Maintenance
• Materials planning, design and equipment control
• Education & Training
• Office TPM
• Safety, Hygiene and Environment Control