Page 79 - TPM A Route to World-Class Performance

60 TPM-A Route to World-Class Performance

have now trained the operators to carry out minor tasks that used to tie the
skilled guys down on trivial jobs, so they have time to tackle the bigger
problems on site. It has amazed me how people have taken this on board. In
the past, if we as managers had asked the skilled personnel to train the
operators, they would have gone on strike. As team members, they are doing
it without question. The trouble with all this development of the shopfloor
people is where does it leave me? All the time I have been a supervisor I have
dictated to the shopfloor how they are expected to work on my shift. Now I
have to back off and co-ordinate things rather than manage the people.
Collection of the data has been going on since the start of the pilot project
and OEEs have been generated. I feel that this is the most difficult section of
the nine-step process, as people cannot see how all the pieces of the jigsaw fit
together at this early stage.

The buy-in phase
I have just undergone Team Leader training, which has given me a better
understanding of how powerful a tool the OEE really is. The first OEE figures
showed us that our machine was performing at an average of 35 per cent
over a three-week period. We came up with a realistic figure as a target by
taking the best availability, performance and quality for that three-week period,
which came out at 52 per cent. This is classed as the ’best of best’ and, if we
can take control of our losses, we can achieve this figure consistently. When
you actually put a cost on this, it equates to a saving of €150 K per annum,
and if I find a fault I can justify downtime to eliminate that fault against loss
of OEE per annum. This is the first time that I have actually been given a tool
which allows me to go forward to upper management and be able to justify
my spending and planned downtime on equipment.
The nine-step process is going well and the team have made their job a lot
more user-friendly and also more efficient in the way they operate their
equipment. This in turn gives me more time to complete my work without
being disturbed and without people asking me to sort out their problems all
the time.
We have also been trained in the art of CAN DO, which is the same as the
Japanese 5s. We have had an initial clear-out of things that were not wanted
or had been stored in our area by someone else. The neatness Step 2 is now
being progressed and the place is looking a great deal better - it is surprising
how much extra space we have created in the department. I have now been
allocated an ’improvement zone’ within my department which I am responsible
and accountable for. I still run the whole department and have to ensure that
we hit production targets as well as keeping the place clean, but I have one
area as my TPM/improvement zone which includes CAN DO as well as
attacking problems using the nine-step process.
The hardest problem is getting all shifts to buy into keeping each other’s
areas clean instead of dumping their rubbish into my area when they are due
to be audited. We have had the same trouble with every initiative we have