Consultants and Mentors in World Class Manufacturing

What is TPM?


This is an excellent question, not least because there is more interpretations on the subject than any other philosophy I know, and I know a few. The discrepancy is in the translation.


Japanese is a very graphic language, based on a kanji script that paints the picture, rather than a literal language bound in text, like English. The Japanese we are looking to translate is 保全, referred to as Hozen, or Total Production Maintenance, but literally translated as ‘the protection of the pearl of excellence inside a right regal household’. Not as punchy as TPM I’ll admit, but if you follow my line here, achieving then maintaining process excellence inside your organisation is a more liberal interpretation. Note that the maintenance is about sustaining, rather than getting engineers to operate spanners and oily rags.


If you are with me so far, then stick with me, I am going to get pragmatic.


Under the TPM banner that I like to call Total Productive Management, are tools and techniques designed to identify, and quantify wastes, and a set of rules that guide you to reduce and eliminate those wastes in a prioritised sequence, with a certain outcome of improved performance.


In order to achieve world class performance you need to have excellence in the management of the 4M’s, Men, Machines, Materials and Methods.


I believe that Total Quality Management (currently out of vogue) is how to address the Men, TPM for the Machines, Lean Manufacturing for the Materials, and Methods are derived as a consequence of the other 3.


Undoubtedly TPM is most effective where the throughput id determined by the effective operation of capital plant, just as Lean Manufacturing is most effective in a Batch Assembly environment, but that is not to say the techniques cannot be effectively deployed in other spaces.


Want to learn more? Keep visiting the TPM++  web site, or call me on 077669 10835


Brian Burgess, Principal Consultant, TPM++  brian@tpmplus.co.uk