Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a comprehensive, non-hierarchical approach to equipment maintenance that maximizes Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) in safe working environments. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) measures the percentage of planned production time that is truly productive, accounting for three sources of real loss:
- Availability Loss: All events that cause planned production to stop for a significant amount of time, such as Planned and Unplanned Stops
- Performance Loss: All factors causing a line to operate below maximum speed while still running, events described as Slow Cycles and Small Stops
- Quality Loss: Products that do not meet or exceed quality standards and therefore require rework. Production Rejects and Reduced Yield on Startup are two examples.
Accounting for the three types of loss delivers a percentage of real productivity as measured against ideal potential. The measurement helps identify reasons for lost productivity, delivers a roadmap of loss sources, and quantifies these costs to a business. Measuring OEE becomes the basis of the Total Productive Maintenance process to continually improve output efficiently.
What Is the Implementation Process for Total Productive Maintenance?
Total Productive Maintenance uses OEE data to prioritize and systematically resolve productivity loss factors, increasing output toward the ideal. Ultimately, the initiative will spread to cover all loss-inducing machines, but the following guide shows how to ramp up a new maintenance initiative by starting with one small area and building on one success with broader implementation. Keep in mind that what follows is an overview only.
Step One: Identify Pilot Area
This step guides selection protocol for the pilot Total Productive Maintenance program with the goal of delivering highest probability to initial success.
Step Two: Restore Equipment to Ideal Operating Condition
This step teaches operators to practice predictive maintenance by inspecting equipment. The protocol begins with maintaining the greatest degree of transparency possible by cleaning, organizing, and photographing the area. Then it proceeds into autonomous maintenance by connecting maintenance personnel with operators to determine appropriate inspection points, light maintenance opportunities, and an auditing schedule for the piece of equipment.
Step Three: Measure OEE
Implement a system to track OEE for equipment. These can be either manual or automated. Automated measurement systems can measure OEE in real time, define problem sources, track progress, report to other systems, and ultimately align OEE with Smart Manufacturing.
Step Four: Address Major Loss Sources with Kaizen
Total Productive Maintenance created a continuous process for improving lost productive time, called Focused Improvement. But Lean Manufacturing renamed it as Kaizen. The process involves the selection of a cross-functional, non-hegemonic team to fix problematic equipment efficiently.
Step Five: Initiate Proactive Maintenance
In many cases, productivity losses are created by recurring problems. Kaizen will suggest the proper scheduling for proactive maintenance of equipment, and after the initial solution, maintenance procedures are enacted to track problematic components, maintain them proactively, and create a feedback system for optimizing maintenance procedures. Integrated solutions with wearable technology, such as assisted reality glasses help to reduce the training necessary to implement new operator-driven maintenance procedures.
After successful completion of the pilot program, operators and maintenance teams select the next area for improvement, and equipment coverage grows.
Advantages of Total Productive Maintenance
Fewer breakdowns due to greater team utilization
When machine operators keep an eye out for changes with their equipment and log issues immediately, full breakdowns are much less likely.
Proactive maintenance leads to a safer workplace
Increased transparency into the functionality of equipment creates a safer workplace, where problems are handled before they significantly impact performance, which in turn reduces user error.
High performance
Small, proactive fixes helps to reduce backlog, increase uptime, and shift focus toward sustaining a healthy, productive workplace.
Integrating OEE Tracking with Data Management Systems
When originally practiced in the 70s and 80s, Total Productivity Maintenance practitioners tracked OEE manually or in Excel Spreadsheets. While it is still advised for contemporary practitioners to understand the math behind OEE, IoT devices and simple software solutions help to increase efficiency and convenience while transforming a decades-old concept into a Smart Manufacturing initiative.
Polytron’s expertise with asset management and predictive maintenance tools ensures the Total Productivity initiative can deploy smart devices in tandem with {wearable technologies, integrating disparate components with holistic Data Management Systems and solutions.
Where are you in your Smart Manufacturing journey? Find out by using our Smart Manufacturing Maturity Checklist.
