You're only strong as your weakest link. While trite, the phrase embodies what manufacturing plants and processing facilities have worked to overcome for years: How do you plan for; and prevent broken equipment in your lean machine?

Another trite phrase has the answer: The weakest link in a chain is the strongest because it can break it.
Preventative and routine maintenance models help alleviate downtime and boost overall production. The most popular method is Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

TPM brings maintenance into focus as a vital part of business. Maintenance downtime is included in manufacturing scheduling, and in many cases, becomes an integral part of the manufacturing process. TPM assigns the responsibility for preventative and routine maintenance to the same people who operate that individual equipment. This puts the people most familiar with the machine in charge of its care.

TPM is built on the 5S foundation, which creates effective workplace organization and standardized procedures to improve safety, quality, productivity, and employee attitudes.

In the most basic sense, the three goals of TPM are:

• Zero unplanned failures (no small stops or slow running)
• Zero product defects
• Zero accidents

Shifting cultural beliefs within a facility, from the CEO to machinists and janitors, may take years but the pay off for both the finished product and employee morale is worth the investment.

Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance

JIMP still operates today, as both a survey and research facility testing TPM technologies. The organization is currently researching the aging of equipment life, and state-of-the-art maintenance technology and repair.

According to JIMP, there are two types of aging of equipment life:

• Aging of equipment itself: The product life of the equipment itself comes to an end (aging of parts, fatigue in spindles and foundation, paint deterioration of buildings, towers and vessels, and increase in discontinued products).
• Aging of functions independent from aging of the equipment: The product life of the equipment itself has not ended (incapacity or inability to meet required quality, stricter requirements on quality and obsolescence with products in the market).

While state-of-the-art technologies for equipment life prediction are advanced, JIMP claims it's difficult to predict the month-by-month deterioration of machinery that has been used for 30 years. Companies have taken advanced approaches to predicting when a machine will break down. Two metrics used are Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Total Effective Equipment Performance (TEEP).

• OEE quantifies how well a manufacturing unit performs relative to its designed capacity, during the periods when it is scheduled to run
• TEEP measures OEE against calendar hours

JIMP is currently utilizing equipment diagnostic technology and the data analysis system, to -provide maintenance best practices in industries such as assembly processing, automobiles, semiconductors, and food.

TPM Training Resources

Receive a complimentary Total Productive Maintenance Guide to reduce or even eliminate machine failure or tool downtime and boost efficiency in your workplace. Duralabel also offers a TPM Infographic, which outlines the eight management pillars, that can be copy-and-pasted for high-resolution reprinting or posting.