TPM – Total Productive Maintenance Pillars

Total Productive Maintenance is a program for increasing efficiency of machines and processes
and stands on eight pillars with 5S as its foundation. Once a high degree of stability is
established using the 5S program, an organization is ready to start implementing the total
productive maintenance programs.

Pillar 1: Focused Improvement

This is considered the foundation of the TPM program because without it the initiative will
collapse under the weight of disorganization, indiscipline and inefficiency. It is important
because it results in a clean, visually organized workplace that is self-maintaining. Problems
cannot be clearly seen when the work place is disorganized. Cleaning and organizing the
workplace helps the team to uncover problems. Making problems visible is the first step of
improvement. This pillar is also known as 5S because the steps in which cleaning and organizing
is achieved can be summarized into five terms starting with the letter S; sorting, systematize,
sweep, standardize, self-discipline.

5S consists of five basic steps:

 Sorting (Organising); all the items in the workplace and removing everything that is not
necessary and does not contribute to the creation of value for the customer. This means
sorting and organizing the items in a manner of critical, important, frequently used items,
useless, or items that are not needed immediately. Critical items should be kept for use
nearby and items that are not be used in near future, should be stored in some place. The
worth of the item should be decided based on utility and not cost. One of the benefits of
sorting is that the waiting and search time is reduced.
 Systematize (Tidiness); the idea is that each item should have a designated position to be
put and only one position. Every time that item is used, it should be placed back into that
very position. Furthermore, for easy identification of items, name plates, name tags and
color tags should be used. Vertical racks can be used to easily fix the tags and plates. The
items should be arranged starting with the heaviest at the bottom and decreasing in
weight towards the top. This ensures stability of the rack, such that it will not break or
topple over.
 Shining (Cleaning); this involves cleaning the work place free of pointy objects, grease,
oil, waste, scrap, dust, cob webs, etc. when it comes to an outdoor environment such as a
high tension yard housing transformers and other switchgear or a repair yard, there
should be no loosely hanging wires or oil leakage from machines. It is important that any
abnormalities and hazards are made visible or taken care of. It has been observed that a
clean and organized workplace has a positive effect on worker morale, not to mention
that it also instills a sense of discipline; all of which have an impact on overall
productivity.
 Standardizing; Employees have to discuss and decide on standards for keeping the work
place, machines, and pathways neat and clean. These standards should be applied to the
entire organization, and also should be tested and inspected from time to time to ensure
 that they are applicable and can be implemented. One method that helps to set up
standards in an organization is by documenting improvements each time there made.
 Self-discipline; If the above rules have to work, it is important that employees are
disciplined to obey them. Ways in which employees can show self-discipline is by
wearing safety attire, badges, following work procedure, observing and maintaining
standards, been punctual and dedicated to the organization and working by their code of
ethics.

5S is very effective and has been shown to increase aspects in an organization such as
productivity and quality.

For example, if the workplace is clean and organized, tools used in maintenance are easily
located – this has a positive effect on machine uptime.

TPM Pillar 2: Autonomous Maintenance

Autonomous Maintenance places the responsibility of basic maintenance activities in the hands
of the operators and leaves the more trained and technical maintenance staff with more time to
attend to more complex maintenance tasks. Maintenance activities that could be carried out by
operators include basic cleaning of machines, lubricating, oiling, and tightening of nuts and
bolts, inspection, diagnosis of potential problems and other actions that increase the productive
life of machines or equipment. The aim of this pillar is therefore to increase the skill levels of
personnel so that they can understand, manage and improve their own equipment and processes.
The benefits of this initiative is that operators become more responsible towards their work and
downtime is reduced because there is no need of waiting for maintenance staff as they
themselves can correct simple problems that may occur from time to time. The benefits to the
maintenance team on the other hand is that they will be more concerned with more value added
activities that require a higher technical ability such as replacement and servicing of internal
parts and have more time on these issues, increasing their effectiveness and level of
concentration and a guarantee of quality work. They will also carry out scheduled or planned
maintenance which means production will not be interrupted unnecessarily.

Autonomous maintenance has benefits to both the workers and the organization as a whole:

 Operators become more responsible and concerned about the condition of equipment they
use on a daily basis
 Skill levels of workers increase as they gain an understanding of the general working of
equipment thus achieving the multi-skilling objective of a lean organization
 Machines operate at their optimal level because basic maintenance such as cleaning and
lubrication is carried out more regularly
 Problems are identified and corrected before they go out of control leading to major
breakdown of equipment.
 Engineering staff are freed-up to carry out higher-level maintenance activities on
sensitive and critical equipment thus reducing the overall system downtime
By carrying out the simple activities in this TPM pillar, capital investments are drastically
reduced because the organization has reliable equipment and does not have to replace machines
as often. This is because the lifespan of machines is drastically increased as forced deterioration
is checked through constant monitoring and maintenance.

TPM Pillar 3: Kaizen

The principle of kaizen is based on continuously making small improvements on a regular basis
and it involves all the employees of an organization. Kaizen requires little or no investment. It is
the exact opposite of big spectacular innovations. The idea is that small but numerous
improvements in an organizational environment are better than few large scale improvements.
The goal of Kaizen is to reduce losses in the workplace by using detailed and thorough
procedures that fall under Kaizen tools. These tools include; production maintenance analysis,
why analysis, summary of losses, Kaizen register and Kaizen summary sheet. Kaizen activities
can be implemented in both production and administrative areas. The ultimate target of Kaizen is
to achieve and sustain zero losses in every activity and a 30% reduction in manufacturing costs.
The types of losses to be minimized by this principle can be categorized as follows; losses that
impede equipment efficiency, losses that impede human work efficiency and losses that impede
effective use of production resources.

The fifth TPM pillar of Early Management uses the experience gathered from previous
maintenance improvement activities to ensure that new machinery reaches its optimal
performance much early than usual.

Working with a myriad of stake-holders including suppliers, the company is able to hit the
ground running with highly reliable and productive equipment.

Such an approach has a positive impact on profitability of the company as maintenance costs are
dramatically reduced.

The productivity as well as output quality of the machines is also guaranteed from the very first
day when the equipment is commissioned.

Using the input from the people who use these machines on a daily basis, suppliers of the
equipment can improve the maintainability and operability in the next iteration of their products.

Among the factors that should be considered when designing new equipment include:

 Ease of cleaning and inspection

 Ease of lubrication
 Accessibility of equipment parts
 Improving operability of machines through ergonomically placing controls in such a way
that they are comfortable to use by operators
  Making it easier for changeover to take place through simplification of procedures or
eliminating the unnecessary ones
 Feedback mechanisms that prevent out-of-spec situations as well as clear indications of
the correct specifications for quality products
 Increased safety features

Though the machines may be designed and manufactured with all the above considerations in
mind, it is still possible that there will be bugs that will need to be removed before full
commissioning.

Early management is a system that addresses these concerns and uses input from the staff who
will be using the equipment before installation.

TPM Pillar 4: Planned Maintenance

Planned maintenance is the scheduling of maintenance activities based on observed behavior of
machines such as failure rates and breakdowns. It is aimed to have trouble free machines and
equipment’s producing defect free products. In this way, breakdowns and failure is minimized
thus contributing to a longer service life of machines. Because there is a specific time for
maintaining equipment, production is rarely interrupted as these activities are scheduled around
the time when they are idle or are producing very little. Maintenance programs can be
categorized into; preventive, breakdown, corrective and maintenance prevention maintenance
programs.

Planned maintenance yields more benefits as compared to reactive maintenance. Reactive

maintenance waits for problems to occur having a negative impact on productivity due to
machine downtime. Production will never be sure when they will be able to get back to work
because the problems are not clear and technicians will have to do fault finding work to find
causes of breakdown before anything. Some benefits of taking the planned maintenance
approach include; the number of breakdowns gradually decrease and this then increases the
capacity for productive activities, production functions can continue with their activities
uninterrupted because they know exactly when maintenance will take place, maintenance is done
when the production floor is not very busy and investments in machinery are reduced as the
equipment is utilized to its fullest potential, etc.

Pillar 5: Quality Maintenance

The aim of quality maintenance is to ensure the highest quality of production of goods and
services thus guaranteeing customer satisfaction. It does so by ensuring equipment is able to
detect and prevent errors during production. It is based on the basic concept of maintaining
perfect equipment to maintain perfect quality of products. The conditions of equipment are
checked and measured to ensure that the measure values are within standard values to avoid
defects. Also, the trend of measured values is observed each time to predict the occurrence of
defects and counter them beforehand. By detecting errors, processes become reliable enough to
produce the right specification the first time. The quality aspect of maintenance is very important
because it helps in preventing defects from been passed on from one product to the next which
only leads to a lot of rework. The cost of rework is inherently eliminated, as quality is gotten
right the first time. The quality maintenance pillar of TPM also promotes in workforce the habit
of finding the root cause of problems instead of rushing to solutions that are not permanent.
Quality maintenance involves gaining an understanding of what parts of equipment affects
product quality and then trying to eliminate those current quality concerns. Afterwards, potential
quality concerns are addressed.

Pillar 6: Training
This pillar is concerned with filling the knowledge gap that exists in an organization when it
comes to total productive maintenance. It is aimed to have multi-skilled employees whose
morale is high and can perform all work related tasks effectively and independently. Education is
given to operators to upgrade their skill. It is not enough to know only the "know-how" but also
the "know-why". Operators usually gain the “know-how” through experience. They know how to
overcome problems without knowing the root cause of the problem. It is necessary to train
employees on the “know-why” so that they can be able to know and understand the causes of
problems. This way, they spend less time and effort in trying to find solutions for many
problems. They will also be able to deliver excellent service that will be able to yield the best
results. They can also attain a higher level of expertise. Employees should be trained to achieve
the four levels of skills which are; do not know, know the theory but cannot do, can do but
cannot teach and can do and also teach. Training focuses on; improving the knowledge, skill and
techniques of employees, removing employee fatigue and make work enjoyable and training
curriculum, tools and assessments etc. conducive to employee revitalization. Without proper
training, tools such as TPM can be misunderstood by the staff which can result in disastrous
results for the company. Ensuring that employees are trained gives the organization a reliable
pool of knowledgeable staff that can drive the initiative competently. All levels of employees are
catered for in the training program from operators to senior managers. The technical staff is then
taught higher level skills such as preventive maintenance and analytical skills to help become
more proactive to problem solving. At the managerial level, managers also learn the TPM skills
so as to become competent mentors to their juniors as well as be involved in coaching programs.

Pillar 7: Health, Safety & Environment

Workers must be able to perform their functions in a safe environment free of health and injury
risks. The health, safety and environment pillar of total productive maintenance ensures that all
workers are provided with an environment that is safe to work in and that all conditions that are
harmful to their well-being are eliminated. This pillar should also play an active role in the other
seven pillars that have been mentioned. While the goal of any organization is to produce value
for the customer in an efficient and productive manner, this should be done in a way that is does
not put to risk the safety of workers. The target is zero accident, zero health damage and zero
fires. It is therefore important that any solutions which are put in place should consider the well-
being of the worker above all else. When workers are in a safe environment, their attitude
towards work changes positively with a resultant increase in productivity. This is because
injuries or fatalities reduce when there is a great effort to make the workplace an accident-free
environment. The cross-functional teams will work towards making machines safe to use by the
operators by putting in place features such as guards, works standards, use of personal protective
equipment and first-aid kits in the work-area. Each of these measures is aimed at improving the
safety of the machines so as to have a more productive work-force. Other efforts made to create
awareness among employees is through various competitions like promoting safety slogans,
quizzes, plays/drama, posters, magazines, departmental letters, memos, encouraging safety talks
before work commences etc.

Pillar 8: TPM in Office Functions

Taking TPM to the administrative and support functions is the next logical step in the total
productive maintenance program so as to have the whole organization speaking from the same
page. This eliminates waste and losses from departments. As these are supportive functions,
making employees understand and apply the principles in their own operations makes it easy for
them to provide efficient service to the main value-creating processes. It ensures that the goals
and objectives of each department are aligned to the organization’s vision and mission. Office
TPM must be followed to improve productivity and efficiency in the administrative function. In
addition, spreading the initiative into other functions encourages horizontal cooperation within
the workforce. The organization will also benefit by having a larger pool of workers who
understand the principles of TPM and can easily be called upon to play a positive role in its
implementation. For example, if the administrative functions are able to improve their order
processing procedures, then material will get to the shop-floor in a swift manner which will have
a positive effect on the workflow. Furthermore, if suppliers are paid on time, they will have the
ability to provide the services that they have been contracted to give without any problem.

Office TPM should be started after activating four other pillars of TPM (JH, KK, QM, PM).
Office TPM must be followed to improve productivity, efficiency in the administrative functions
and identify and eliminate losses. This includes analyzing processes and procedures towards
increased office automation. Office TPM addresses twelve major losses.
They are
1. Processing loss
2. Cost loss including in areas such as procurement, accounts, marketing, sales leading to high
inventories
3. Communication loss
4. Idle loss
5. Set-up loss
6. Accuracy loss
7. Office equipment breakdown
8. Communication channel breakdown, telephone and fax lines
9. Time spent on retrieval of information
10. Non availability of correct on line stock status
11. Customer complaints due to logistics
12. Expenses on emergency dispatches/purchases