Teamwork Maintenance Strategy for the next level in Productivity
TPM: another acronym for us all to remember, or a methodology to taking a production system to the next level.
I always refer to it as 'Teamwork' Productive Maintenance as it's all about the people for me, working together in an organised way. I first heard of TPM from the Toyota Production System that utilised teamwork to achieve outstanding levels of efficiency and productivity.
Whilst it would be lovely to emulate the success of Toyota by using this methodology I believe that many have tried (Ford) and few if any have succeeded; we may be able to steal a little of the TPM process to fit our organisation though.
So what's it all about?
People working together in small diverse teams is found to provide the best results.
In a maintenance centred team this means front line operators working in partnership with maintenance personnel and other specialists in a collaborative approach.
By working as an integrated team with a common purpose those involved are more committed to working towards a positive outcomes. All organisations will not have the size of a "Toyota" and one size TPM does not fit all so some tailoring to fit will have to take place.
For some TPM processes may not even be applicable to their business. I'm thinking about production based industry here.
The aspect of inclusion, continuous improvement and learning is something that is key and is best realised in this excellent quote from W. Edwards Deming:
"The greatest waste is a failure to use the abilities of people, to learn about their frustrations and make the contributions they are eager to make"
I'm not a purist when it comes to TPM, I believe in mixing and matching to suit the organisations needs.
The organisations aims and operational goals have to be central to the TPM teams operation as an autonomous unit within the production process.
It has some guides laid down as foundations to operate within:
- Eliminate machine and asset losses to maximise productivity and OEE
- Allow Operators to Own the equipment with training, involvement and maintenance
- Continuous Improvement activities involving operators, maintenance and engineers
- Asset Management Strategy: review the equipment for maintainability, ease of operation, accessibility and waste reduction, above all actioning the deficiencies.
- Empowered Teams: autonomous teams working and acting together within guidelines to achieve overall mission goals.
- Planning and Scheduling: making sure the maintenance resource is managed whilst taking into account the process needs, looking for opportunities to act.
- Systems and Standard Procedures: document, edit and improve Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) so that any improvements are sustainable.
- Measure and Demonstrate: progress seen through visuals, noticeboards and other methods to track the path to the operations overall mission goal.
- Continuous Improvement: teams constantly searching, testing, implementing process or maintenance improvements and solutions continuously.
- Process Reviews: whilst all these improvements and changes take place the processes of planning, maintenance with new processes on an ongoing basis.
TPM infographic above from Uptime Consultant Ltd ©2017
The value of teamwork cannot be under estimated and is demonstrated in sports, armed forces and in industry.
Blurring the boundaries between Operators, Maintenance, Engineering and Operations is the way forward in industry, if your business is not already adopting these methods it may have to soon or become unsustainable in the long term.
Blurring the boundaries between Operators, Maintenance, Engineering and Operations is the way forward in industry, if your business is not already adopting these methods it may have to soon or become unsustainable in the long term.
Autonomous Maintenance (AM)
Examining the relationship between AM and TPM
We can't really consider AM without understanding a TPM strategy because they are so closely intwined with each other. Autonomous Maintenance for me is where the real benefits in front line engagement, owning the equipment and the operating area exists.
Unfortunately there still exists a gap in what senior management may believe is a 'worker' to what TPM and AM knows an 'operator' is capable of. Notice the distinction here from mere worker to engaged operator.
This is where the culture of a company has to shift at all levels, from 'workers' to continuously improving and engaged operators taking care of their assets.
In todays climate of ever increasing complexity of equipment and shortage of Engineers to maintain those assets it becomes even more important to nurture empowered front line operators.
Operators are the only people that work with their assets day in day out that have the knowledge and ability to fill that increasing skills gap. The good news is that operations that do engage their Operators will benefit on multiple levels, from increased morale, improved visibility of uptime with a happier workforce.
I come at this subject with a bias and feel I must reveal my hand before I go any further.
You see, I'm an advocate, I can't flip flop on this one, but it's up to the reader to make their choice.
I have witnessed it in practice, the development process, the hurdles along the way, some set backs and the adoption into a successful strategy.
It's not a race, like all good things it takes time to develop, and I would like to point out this is not a 'project', it needs to become part of the everyday routine that morphs over the long term to fit your particular process or operation.
Continuous Improvement is a major part of this journey.
There are loads of books (my favourite is 'Autonomous Maintenance in Seven Steps' by Tajiri & Gotoh) and publications out there that will explain the 6 or 7 step programs of autonomous maintenance, so I'm not going to copy and paste all that here.
Here I attempt to explain how I personally have experienced AM working in practice
My experience is from ten years spent as part of a reliability team implementing a Condition Based Monitoring and Lubrication strategy for a large snack food site.
I was fully hands on at this activity and nearly all of the Condition Monitoring (CM) was route based with handheld technology. AM was a new part of the strategy at the time but was having those early adoption difficulties, I learnt very early on that the last thing I needed to do was blindly take CM route readings; there was great information already out there.
In the ten years I performed CM my best 'tool' was the Operator that was looking after the particular production line of interest. These were my 'go to people' that held a wealth of invaluable information, they didn't know this until we talked about their equipment, surprisingly no one had ever asked them what they thought.
So that's how I personally developed my own network on the front line of 'eyes and ears' for Condition Monitoring.
Out of that group emerged key people who were what I referred to as my 'change merchants', these were the operators that within a couple of months would search me out to tell me of issues they had either seen, heard or suspected.
I actively worked with them to confirm or deny if their suspicions were founded by involving them in using some of the CM tools, this brought them a better understanding of their equipment.
Often their suspicions were confirmed as parts were proven to be showing early signs of degradation or breakdown.
These same operators later engaged in Lubrication workshops I delivered as an addition to their future development.
I was fully hands on at this activity and nearly all of the Condition Monitoring (CM) was route based with handheld technology. AM was a new part of the strategy at the time but was having those early adoption difficulties, I learnt very early on that the last thing I needed to do was blindly take CM route readings; there was great information already out there.
In the ten years I performed CM my best 'tool' was the Operator that was looking after the particular production line of interest. These were my 'go to people' that held a wealth of invaluable information, they didn't know this until we talked about their equipment, surprisingly no one had ever asked them what they thought.
So that's how I personally developed my own network on the front line of 'eyes and ears' for Condition Monitoring.
Out of that group emerged key people who were what I referred to as my 'change merchants', these were the operators that within a couple of months would search me out to tell me of issues they had either seen, heard or suspected.
I actively worked with them to confirm or deny if their suspicions were founded by involving them in using some of the CM tools, this brought them a better understanding of their equipment.
Often their suspicions were confirmed as parts were proven to be showing early signs of degradation or breakdown.
These same operators later engaged in Lubrication workshops I delivered as an addition to their future development.
When I think about it now these individuals realised as much as my CM technology did, back then I would start an inspection by taking five or ten minutes with the operators talking about the process, how were things going, had they noticed anything unusual, were there any product issues, what were the process set points doing, had they any suspicions of impending issues.
This not only enhanced my own process knowledge but let them realise the correlation between the equipment they were operating and the product being produced, I'm sure they also felt more valued at being involved.
I was able to mentor them week on week by turning those finds we had together into preventative work orders that they then had the opportunity of actioning during planned maintenance. It took a while as all things do, it was a journey that each individual approached slightly differently, some found it easy whilst others needed more support.
That's why I'm a believer in TPM and AM - bringing operators along on the journey into real ownership of their assets.
You can go and follow the prescribed 7 Steps and other plans but at the end of the day you have to interact with people, mentor your front line operators, share your knowledge, listen to what they are saying and learn from their experience.
These are the most valuable people in any production operation to enhance asset availability and uptime.
At the end of the day it's all about people.
This not only enhanced my own process knowledge but let them realise the correlation between the equipment they were operating and the product being produced, I'm sure they also felt more valued at being involved.
I was able to mentor them week on week by turning those finds we had together into preventative work orders that they then had the opportunity of actioning during planned maintenance. It took a while as all things do, it was a journey that each individual approached slightly differently, some found it easy whilst others needed more support.
That's why I'm a believer in TPM and AM - bringing operators along on the journey into real ownership of their assets.
You can go and follow the prescribed 7 Steps and other plans but at the end of the day you have to interact with people, mentor your front line operators, share your knowledge, listen to what they are saying and learn from their experience.
These are the most valuable people in any production operation to enhance asset availability and uptime.
At the end of the day it's all about people.