TPM, a supportive tool for lean manufacturing

Thilak Pushpakumara CEO/Lean Management Consultant Institute of Lean Management (Pvt) Ltd.

Today we are in a Liberalized, Globalized and Privatized (LGP) world where the price of a product or service is more crucial. Before the LGP world, manufacturers added their profit to cost and decided the price. (Cost +Profit=Price) but today, Profit = Price-Cost. Hence, the Cost factor will decide the future of any business. There are many ways to cut down cost but we cannot compromise Quality because we are in a LGP world. In the Pre LGP world we spoke about customer satisfaction but now we drive towards delighting customers.

What is the difference between satisfied customer and delighted customer?

A satisfied customer will buy from us, and a delighted customer will sell for us. Making our product or service available is another crucial factor in a LGP world.

Speed to market, on time delivery in full has become a part of our business life. Everybody is trying their best to maximize value (Quality, Cost, Delivery) to be competitive in a LGP world.

Most of the organizations have chosen lean manufacturing or lean/six sigma as a tool to maximize value and expect quick results. Toyota Production System (TPS) is their benchmark.

Lean manufacturing concept was developed based on Toyota way of working. Toyota Production System, TPS mainly concentrate on waste elimination through Just In Time (JIT) and Jidoka (Autonomation) concepts. But the foundation is 5S and visual management followed by standardized work. Gradually Toyota implemented Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) because they realised that they cannot challenge JIT and Jidoka without developing multitasking people and reliable equipment.

TPM provided solutions for these two while delivering tangible and intangible benefits to the organization. And also it transformed people and the plant and set up corporate culture which could challenge JIT and Jidoka to eliminate waste.

Toyota took about 30 years to reach this level. But other industries benchmark Toyota and try to achieve ultimate goal of waste elimination without following the correct path. We should not spend even 10 years to reach this level since Toyota has developed the concept and we could benchmark it.

Time is important in a competitive business environment but following the right sequence is more important because it takes you to World Class without fail and with sustainability.

What is lean?

Lean is a business philosophy that was first developed by Taichi Ohono in 90s with particular focus on manufacturing firms. Now it is applied in various industries for improving their business and reducing all sources of waste, losses and non-value adding activities.

Lean provides the way to do more and more with less and less human effort, inventory, machines, space and time while becoming closer to customers providing exactly what they need.

The main focus of lean is, systematic elimination of waste. Inventory reduction plays a major role in lean because it brings quick cash to the business and cash flow is improved. Material and information flow analysis (MIFA) needs to be done before reducing inventory, which is called value stream mapping.

After successful completion of MIFA, Lean practitioners reduce Work In Progress (WIP) and inventory and introduce “Kanban” cards and Kanban post proudly. After a month time they tend to revise the standards because of unpredicted machine breakdowns, operator absenteeism, non-availability of spare parts, raw and packing materials due to logistic losses.

How can TPM support lean?

TPM teach us 16 losses in a manufacturing process. Machine related losses (seven losses), people related/Management losses (Five losses), yield losses (Three losses) and shut down loss under Kobetsu Kaizen pillar. Planned Maintenance, Autonomous Maintenance, Early Management and Education and Training (E and T) pillar activities directly contribute to achieve zero failure.

The detail assessment of spare parts management is done under planned maintenance pillar and develops strategies to make sure availability of spare parts while maintaining low inventory cost. Kobetsu kaizen pillar activities increase the capacity of the machine and challenge name plate capacity and go beyond the manufacturers’ recommendations while protecting the equipment and lifecycle of the machine.

Developing multitasking operators through Autonomous Maintenance, Education and Training and Kobetsu Kaizen pillar activities will help to deliver value with less human effort. Unexpected absenteeism will not be a big issue if we have enough multitasking operators.

Office TPM or TPM in supply chain will address the five logistic losses and make sure material availability for production. This pillar is specially designed to address inefficiencies in administration functions.

Equipment and people safety is a key area to focus if we challenge JIT. Safety health and Environment pillar activities are designed to address this issue. First time right all the time, is a mandatory requirement in JIT. Quality Maintenance (QM) pillar activities in TPM systematically handle this issue.

Quality Control and Quality Assurance department activities will be minimized and easier when QM pillar activities are in action because QM activities investigate the mechanism of the machine and address all malfunctions which leads to produce defects. In general, the focus in these areas by lean practitioners is less due to multiple reasons. But in the middle of the lean journey they realize the importance of TPM in lean manufacturing.

TPM practitioners have better understanding in World Class journey and sequence than others because the eight pillars of TPM covers the entire business process. None of the organizations can challenge World Class Status only with TPM and also none of the organizations can challenge World Class without implementing TPM at the early stage in their journey towards World Class.