Total Productive Maintenance
I have previously highlighted that operating expenses
and investment in an organization need to be managed
downwards relative to sales revenues.
This seems logical but many decisions taken in business
do not align with this.
For example, if an organization can’t meet customer
demand they may decide that the solution is to invest a
significant amount of money in new equipment.
Many organizations have done this and have had little or
no improvement in sales revenues/throughput.
The only thing significantly impacted is the financial returns of the business.
Surely we should ask first “How well are we running the equipment that we have?”
The organization needs to ask “What are we losing time to?” The 6 types of equipment losses are:
- Down Time
- Change Overs
- Running Slow
- Minor Stops
- Start up
- Defects
Equipment is also impacted by the 8 wastes, namely:
- Over production
- Waiting
- Material Handling
- Inapprop Processing
- Unnecessary Inventory
- Unnecessary Motion
- Defects / Correction
- Lost Human Creativity
Total Productive Maintenance is a tool that can be used to improve equipment performance.
The objective of TPM is to:
- Eliminate equipment related wastes / losses
- Ensure maximum equipment availability & performance
What is Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)?
Total
The entire team related to the equipment and it’s operation must be involved i.e. the operator(s), team leader and maintenance staff.
Productive
The equipment should be always:
- Available
- Reliable
- Capable
Maintenance
- Autonomous maintenance – the equipment care practices which are the responsibility of Operators and the Team Leader
- Effective maintenance - the practices which are the responsibility of Maintenance personnel
An organisation wanting to implement TPM should ideally implement 5S program first.
5S is the best practice of creating an organised, safe and waste free workplace using the following 5 principles
- Sort - sorting & removing unnecessary items
- Shine – cleaning the work area
- Set in order – a place for everything & everything in it’s place
- Standards – establishing the rules & standards
- Sustain – maintaining the standards
Following 5S an organisation could start to introduce Autonomous Maintenance (or Equipment Care) practices.
Autonomous Maintenance requires us to train machine operators to
- operate equipment correctly,
- keep it clean,
- do basic lubrication and
- inspect it regularly.
Typically Autonomous Maintenance needs to address:
- Operator training i.e. TPM, Safety, Lubricant, Coolants, Pnuematics etc
- Equipment improvements to make it easier to inspect/maintain i.e. inspection panels,
- Cleaning, Inspection and Lubrication schedules
- Standard Work Methods for Cleaning, lubricating etc.
This approach will free up skilled maintenance staff to spend more time on complex repairs or more value adding activities (Effective Maintenance).
Effective maintenance has several components namely:
- Breakdown maintenance
- Preventative maintenance – Fixed Interval maintenance, Condition Based maintenance, Maintenance Reduction.
Set Up Time Reduction (SMED)
This is one of those topics that in my experience can have many names i.e.
- Set Up Reduction
- Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)
- Change Over Reduction
- Process Time Reduction
What are we talking about? Set Up Time is defined as the time from when the last good piece is produced through to when the first good piece is produced at optimum speed.
In a previous article I listed Change Over (or Set Up) times as 1 of the 6 Equipment Losses to be addressed during a Lean Thinking Implementation.
What are the benefits of Set Up Time Reduction?
- Flexibility to respond quickly to changing market demand
- Reduced leadtimes
- Reduced stock levels and possibly batch sizes
- Reduced start up wastes
- Lower skills required by simplifying the process
- Higher production output
- Increased ownership by operators
For me the epitome of quick changeovers
is a motor racing pit crew.
How can such a small team fill up with fuel,
change brake pads and tyres in less than
10 seconds safely?
Often the performance of this small team
is the difference between winning or losing
the race. How do they do it?
The principles are no different to the process you can follow, namely:
- Observe and document the current practices before, during and after a change over
- Identify what currently happens when production/processing is stopped (Internal activities)
- Look at what happens now when production/processing is stopped and make it a task that can be done before the process stops or after the process is underway again (if possible). In other words, look at what tasks are currently Internal to the change over and make them External if possible.
Often these simple steps can make a huge difference (50% or more reduction) to the time lost to changeovers and with little investment except for some time.
This reduction in Set Up times can enable batch size reductions of at least the same amount.
The impact of these 2 changes will dramatically reduce customer leadtimes.
If the improvements are not enough to reach the desired level of performance the next steps would be to:
- Streamline the remaining items that happen when the process is stopped
- Eliminate the need for adjustments
Often these 2 steps may require more investment.
As always Set Up Time Reduction works in conjunction with other Lean Thinking Best Practices like 5S, Visual Performance Measures. Theory of Constraints etc.
In relation to the Theory of Constraints don’t forget that the focus of any Set Up Reduction program must always start with your bottleneck or constraint processes to get maximum impact.
Lastly, keep in mind that these principles are just as valid in admin/office areas as they are in production. How much time is lost during a day for office staff related to switching from working on one process to another?
Lean Manufacturing
Organisational Leaders globally are being asked to achieve the same (or more) with less resources.
What happens when the resources available can’t meet
customer/client/patient demand and expectations?
The organization may consider:
• The existing staff doing more hours• Recruiting additional staff• Outsourcing work• Upgrading equipment i.e. computer software,phone system etc.These solutions have one thing in common – More Cost!
The goal of any business (unless it is not for profit) is to make money is it not?
To achieve this goal we need our operating expenses and investment in the business to be going down relative to our sales revenues.
How do we do this? Application of Lean Thinking Best Practices to all Service/Office processes regardless of the industry you operate in.
Examples of the processes we are talking about could include:
- Order entry
- Preparation of tenders/quotes
- Project planning/scheduling
- Health services – surgical, outpatients, examinations
- Processing of applications/claims
- Product development
- Procurement
- Engineering
- Logistics
What are the Best Practices that need to be embraced in a service/office environment? They are:
- Leading and Managing Change
- Teamwork
- 5S
- Visual Measures
- Problem Solving
- Process Time Reduction
- Process Flow
- Error Proofing
- Quality
- Waste Reduction
These Best Practices will challenge conventional thinking. They require the involvement of all and strong leadership
For example: A collegue was working with a client and the request was to make the call center more efficient. The response was “Shouldn’t we be working on why the call center is so busy” “Why do our clients need to ring us? Have we not provided information they require? Have we processed their request incorrectly?” What was incorrect? Why was it incorrect? etc
The original request was basically a form of firefighting would you agree? Lean Thinking says No More – let’s change from fire fighting to structured problem solving. Let’s understand the root cause and fix it so we no longer need to firefight the same issue (though it could look different each time) time and again.
There are several key concepts to Lean Thinking, namely:
1. Our Customers (internal and external) Define Value in the organisation. They want what they need (fit for purpose, right first time, acceptable price/quantity, flexibility etc) when they need it. If this is accepted, it should change the way we view our workplace.
Ask yourself: If I am the customer is the task I am working on of value? Would I be happy to pay for it? For example: A task has been completed and is incorrect so it has to be redone. Am I as the customer happy to pay for the time taken to do the rework? The answer would be NO wouldn’t it. To the customer Value means right first time so this is what the process must deliver.
2. We must make Value Flow in our organization. Think for a minute about how long it takes from receipt to completion of a task/process/project that you are part of. Now reflect on how much time someone is actually working on it? Usually the balance of the time is spent waiting in a queue, waiting for someone to be available, waiting for information. The concept of making all work flow again challenges conventional thinking. For example, we may need resources dedicated to act as “Runners” so that those that add value are not interrupted
3. The relentless pursuit of Eliminating Waste. In order to eliminate waste we first need to “see” it. Once we “see” the wastes in our organisation we have the opportunity to reduce or eliminate them. What type of waste? The wastes of
- Over-production
- Waiting
- Unnecessary handling
- Unnecessary processing
- Unnecessary motion
- Unnecessary work-in-progress
- Rework of defects/errors
- Lost Human Creativity
Lean Service (Office)
Organisational Leaders globally are being asked to achieve the same (or more) with less resources.
What happens when the resources available can’t meet
customer/client/patient demand and expectations?
The organization may consider:
- The existing staff doing more hours
- Recruiting additional staff
- Outsourcing work
- Upgrading equipment i.e. computer software,
phone system etc.
These solutions have one thing in common – More Cost!
The goal of any business (unless it is not for profit) is to make money is it not?
To achieve this goal we need our operating expenses and investment in the business to be going down relative to our sales revenues.
How do we do this? Application of Lean Thinking Best Practices to all Service/Office processes regardless of the industry you operate in.
Examples of the processes we are talking about could include:
- Order entry
- Preparation of tenders/quotes
- Project planning/scheduling
- Health services – surgical, outpatients, examinations
- Processing of applications/claims
- Product development
- Procurement
- Engineering
- Logistics
What are the Best Practices that need to be embraced in a service/office environment? They are:
- Leading and Managing Change
- Teamwork
- 5S
- Visual Measures
- Problem Solving
- Process Time Reduction
- Process Flow
- Error Proofing
- Quality
- Waste Reduction
These Best Practices will challenge conventional thinking. They require the involvement of all and strong leadership
For example: A collegue was working with a client and the request was to make the call center more efficient. The response was “Shouldn’t we be working on why the call center is so busy” “Why do our clients need to ring us? Have we not provided information they require? Have we processed their request incorrectly?” What was incorrect? Why was it incorrect? etc
The original request was basically a form of firefighting would you agree? Lean Thinking says No More – let’s change from fire fighting to structured problem solving. Let’s understand the root cause and fix it so we no longer need to firefight the same issue (though it could look different each time) time and again.
There are several key concepts to Lean Thinking, namely:
- 1. Our Customers (internal and external) Define Value in the organisation. They want what they need (fit for purpose, right first time, acceptable price/quantity, flexibility etc) when they need it. If this is accepted, it should change the way we view our workplace.
Ask yourself: If I am the customer is the task I am working on of value? Would I be happy to pay for it? For example: A task has been completed and is incorrect so it has to be redone. Am I as the customer happy to pay for the time taken to do the rework? The answer would be NO wouldn’t it. To the customer Value means right first time so this is what the process must deliver. - We must make Value Flow in our organization. Think for a minute about how long it takes from receipt to completion of a task/process/project that you are part of. Now reflect on how much time someone is actually working on it? Usually the balance of the time is spent waiting in a queue, waiting for someone to be available, waiting for information. The concept of making all work flow again challenges conventional thinking. For example, we may need resources dedicated to act as “Runners” so that those that add value are not interrupted
- The relentless pursuit of Eliminating Waste. In order to eliminate waste we first need to “see” it. Once we “see” the wastes in our organisation we have the opportunity to reduce or eliminate them. What type of waste? The wastes of
- Over-production
- Waiting
- Unnecessary handling
- Unnecessary processing
- Unnecessary motion
- Unnecessary work-in-progress
- Rework of defects/errors
- Lost Human Creativity
Written by:
Michael Taylor
Contours Customised Solutions