Page 16 - Intro Predictive Maintenance

Impact of Maintenance 7

defects aimed at improving or eliminating the following six crippling shop-floor
losses:

• Equipment breakdowns
• Setup and adjustment slowdowns
• Idling and short-term stoppages
• Reduced capacity
• Quality-related losses
• Startup/restart losses

A concise definition of TPM is elusive, but improving equipment effectiveness comes
close. The partnership idea is what makes it work. In the Japanese model for TPM are
five pillars that help define how people work together in this partnership.

Five Pillars of TPM. Total productive maintenance stresses the basics of good busi-
ness practices as they relate to the maintenance function. The five fundamentals of
this approach include the following:

1. Improving equipment effectiveness. In other words, looking for the six
big losses, finding out what causes your equipment to be ineffective, and
making improvements.
2. Involving operators in daily maintenance. This does not necessarily mean
actually performing maintenance. In many successful TPM programs, oper-
ators do not have to actively perform maintenance. They are involved in
the maintenance activity—in the plan, in the program, and in the partner-
ship—but not necessarily in the physical act of maintaining equipment.
3. Improving maintenance efficiency and effectiveness. In most TPM plans,
though, the operator is directly involved in some level of maintenance. This
effort involves better planning and scheduling better preventive mainte-
nance, predictive maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance, spare
parts equipment stores, and tool locations—the collective domain of the
maintenance department and the maintenance technologies.
4. Educating and training personnel. This task is perhaps the most important
in the TPM approach. It involves everyone in the company: Operators are
taught how to operate their machines properly and maintenance personnel
to maintain them properly. Because operators will be performing some of
the inspections, routine machine adjustments, and other preventive tasks,
training involves teaching operators how to do those inspections and how
to work with maintenance in a partnership. Also involved is training super-
visors on how to supervise in a TPM-type team environment.
5. Designing and managing equipment for maintenance prevention. Equip-
ment is costly and should be viewed as a productive asset for its entire life.
Designing equipment that is easier to operate and maintain than previous
designs is a fundamental part of TPM. Suggestions from operators and
maintenance technicians help engineers design, specify, and procure more
effective equipment. By evaluating the costs of operating and maintaining