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194  TPM-A  Route to World-Class Pevfovmance


                   The application of  TPM in Administration, or TPA, has parallels with the
                approach used  in  manufacturing.  Many  administration  problems  are
                unmeasured and therefore hidden, just as they are in manufacturing. This
                chapter looks at the application of  TPA. The issues are just as relevant to non-
                manufacturing industries such as construction, where the workplace is not
                fixed and logistics/planning has to deal with this added dimension. It can
                also be applied to computer-based and financial services work environments,
                where CAN DO is as important as ever.
                   The wide variety of  tasks carried out by administration makes it appear
                complex and  difficult to  standardize. Therefore, when  there  are peaks  in
                workload it can be difficult to know how to smooth out the bottleneck.
                   As a result, there are often minimal standard practices, formal training,
                few, if  any, single-point lessons, fool-proofing or systematic loss elimination
                activities. Individually, good administrators are excellent organizers, but this
                is usually limited to their immediate work rather than the system as a whole.
                Typically, administration systems are characterized by the weaknesses shown
                in Table 10.1.


                Table 10.1 Administration issues and weaknesses

                Issue                                Weakness

                Dependent on individual initiative   Difficult for others to fill in
                Much manual and discretionary work   Difficult to learn from experience
                Numerous records and ledgers to be   Duplication of  documents, files  and
                  maintained                          information
                Current job processing status is     Difficult to measure progress or to
                  difficult to assess                 improve quality standards,
                                                      productivity or delivery performance



                   TPA uses the CAN DO workplace organization steps to address the office
                infrastructure, i.e. filing systems and layout issues.
                   In parallel, office systems are reviewed using the improvement plan phases
                as shown in Figure 10.2 of:
                     Measurement cycle
                   0  Development cycle
                     Problem prevention cycle



                10.2 The TPA  implementation process
                The TPA implementation process is illustrated in Figure 10.3. It comprises the
                'planning'  or scoping stage, followed by the implementation phase.
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