Sustainment of Plant Assets through TPM: An Implementation Strategy

Abstract

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) first took root in the automobile industry and rapidly became part of the corporate culture in companies such as Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda and their supplies and affiliates. Later it was also introduced by other industries such as consumer appliances, microelectronics, machine tools, plastics and many others. The TPM activities are not only limited to departments directly involved with production, but the departments like product development, sales, administrative and support departments, can also apply this to enhance their effectiveness. It is imperative for any target oriented organization to implement world class techniques to derive maximum results from the existing resources. It is felt that many of the specific methods/techniques required in implementing TPM are not new. For instance, the concept of maintenance prevention (MP) through the introduction of reliability, maintainability and supportability characteristics in equipment design has been applied for the many defence systems (going back to mid 1950s). However, these methods/techniques have not been very well understood or properly integrated, nor have they been effectively applied. Thus, there is an educational issue that must be addressed if the concept of TPM is to be accepted in the long term to achieve desired optimum results.
All organizations are in the throes of restructuring, delayering and re-engineering. The purpose is to make them more light and effective. The resulting resource crunch has made it imperative to apply world class techniques to derive optimum benefits out of existing ones. An effort has been made through this paper to convince the readers about applicability of TPM in sustainment of plant assets for optimum results.