Page 88 - TPM A Route to World-Class Performance

Techniques to deliver the TPM principles 69

5 For things to be in the right place'we need to paint clear gangways and
clear markings on the floor for anything mobile (i.e. sillages, raw material,
work in progress, etc.). Correct racking, shadow boards, labelling and
other visual storage aids will form an important part of this stage.
6 Keep the workplace organization under a permanent microscope.
Clean up
7 Do the obvious sweeping and vacuuming of the work area.
8 Inspect and clean every square centimetre of the equipment. Remember:
eve y square centimetre.
9 Identify the points of accelerated deterioration. Where are the leakages
and spillages occurring, and why? Ask 'why?' five times.
10 Get to the root causes of dust, dirt and scattering and eliminate those
reasons. We will achieve a dust-free plant if - and only if - we achieve
this step. All the previous nine steps are useless unless step 10 is
achieved.
11 Revisit steps 1 to 10 and continuously improve.

Step 2 Countermeasures at the source of the
problems
Cleaning, checking, oiling, tightening and alignment of equipment on a daily
basis enable operators to detect abnormalities as soon as they appear. From
then on, operators learn to detect problems and to understand the principles
and procedures of equipment improvement. To set this in perspective, we
can list some examples of situations where the operators have not been trained
to be equipment-conscious:
dirty or neglected equipment
disconnected hoses
0 missing nuts and bolts, producing visible instability
0 steam leaks and air leaks
0 air filter drains in need of cleaning
0 jammed valves
0 hydraulic fluid and lubricating oil leaks
0 measuring instruments too dirty to read
0 abnormal noises in pumps and compressors
These are glaring examples of a failure to maintain the most basic equipment
conditions, but we are deluding ourselves if we believe such situations never
arise - they do! Even brand new equipment, if neglected, will rapidly deteriorate
(i.e. after just a few days) and its performance and output will drop as a
consequence.

Use of visual management techniques
When the equipment has been cleaned and the weaknesses have been found
and corrected, the next phase of the TPM process is to draw attention to the