Using Total Productive Maintenance

As you look for new ways to reduce waste and to create a successful manufacturing company you need to look at all of your options that are available to help you out. One of the methods that many companies will turn to is known as Total Productive Maintenance or TPM. What this method will do is help your manufacturing plant to meet all of the expectations that are part of the continuous flow process. You have to meet certain goals in order to keep up with productivity for the organization but to meet the goals of the customers as well. Failure to do so can result in them moving on to other companies for the things that they need and it can lead to hang-ups within your plant as well.

When you use TPM you will see an improvement in just about every aspect of the company. You can easily find improvements in the production line which are seen right away but you typically see results with other things as well like a planned maintenance system and reduction of maintenance by your equipment operators.

Companies that use TPM find that it helps them to identify what are called "the 6 big losses". These are where you have issues related to the following:
- Loss in breakdown of machinery or equipment
- Loss in the adjustment time and setup of your equipment
- Loss in the idling time and waiting time
- Loss in speed and efficiency
- Loss with the cost of rework due to defects
- Loss in the start-up of machinery or equipment

These are all going to play a major role in the cost of the company profit margin, which is why you must work on understanding the losses and fixing them before they do become an issue for the organization. Equipment problems typically tend to cause the loss issue within manufacturing facilities. You can prevent a lot of the issues that arise by taking the time to service your equipment effectively. To produce a quality product you need to have equipment that can properly perform and will be able to contribute to the bottom line of the company. TPM will help you to find out how you can manage this type of equipment effectiveness and really improve performance along with the quality of your company's products.

Total Productive Maintenance also helps the organization with issues that arise in the loading time and downtime. There needs to be scheduled stops of the machinery but it is all the unscheduled stops that can lead to problems. You need to be able to have the tools necessary to fix machinery when you have breakdowns or when a re-work is ordered due to defects. Adjustments in downtime can kill your profit margin and will back up everything. You must be able to have a good system in place to deal with downtime so you can become effective with the company's bottom line.

Plan out timing for maintenance and do it at a time when you are having work run on the other machines. Giving the machinery downtime allows you to have plenty of time to run preventative maintenance on it so you won't run into defects and other issues in the future. The maintenance of the equipment can take days, which is why it needs to be done on a planned schedule so it doesn't delay the rest of the manufacturing plant from being able to reach their goals.

Total productive maintenance is one of the best lean tools that you can use in order to reduce waste and speed up the efficiency of your company. It can help you to get started with lean so your employees will see results and can have an easier time accepting it.