World class maintenance.

The manufacturing industry's ability to contribute to company profitability is best measured in terms of delivery effectiveness, productivity, cost of quality, cycle times and manufacturing cost structure. However, when it comes to maintenance practices, most metalcasting facilities are not guided by these big picture concepts. Instead, they focus on reducing the out-of-pocket costs to maintain equipment as well as on improving machine uptime. These limited goals are of course worthy ones, but there is a whole world of opportunity lot those who go beyond traditional maintenance and embrace what has come to be called total productive maintenance (TPM).

Like the concept of total quality management (TQM), TPM is focused on improving all of those big picture indicators of manufacturing success. TPM also is very much about safety, asset utilization, expanding capacity without investment in new equipment or people and, of course, continuing to lower the cost of equipment maintenance and improve machine uptime.

TPM is often defined as an approach to "permanently improve the overall effectiveness of equipment with the active involvement of operators." This definition subtly but profoundly shifts the emphasis from maintenance per se to equipment effectiveness, and also shifts the responsibility for that effectiveness from the maintenance department to a new partnership between maintenance staff and equipment operators. As we all discovered when "quality" went through this same type of evolution to "total quality" in the 1980s and 1990s, this shift is more than semantic; in fact, it can be an enormously powerful tool for improving manufacturing success and company profitability.

Optimize improvement

There are three main phases to a TPM installation. The first is to improve existing equipment to its highest required level of performance and availability. This is perhaps the most important phase of TPM and, depending on the current condition and performance of the equipment, may take a long time and a fair amount of money and effort. However, major gains in productivity and cost reductions are accomplished along the way there.

Data and team building are at the heart of this key step. First, it is here that sufficient data about the condition, performance, maintenance and availability of each piece of equipment is gathered, and priorities for equipment improvement are set. Second, it is in this earliest phase that self-directed teams are formed to undertake what is referred to as "autonomous maintenance." The focus of autonomous maintenance is on participation--at the level each metalcasting facility and staff is comfortable with--by the operators in the maintenance, inspection and calibration of their equipment. A significant and often lengthy training effort is required here.

Maintain Strengths

The second phase of TPM should be familiar to most metalcasting facilities, and focuses on continuously maintaining and operating equipment at its highest level of performance and availability. In this step, the goals are to make sure the improvements made in the first phase don't evaporate and to begin the full and formal participation by operators in the maintenance of their equipment.

The means to those ends is a solid predictive and preventive approach to equipment maintenance (PM). Such an approach is built from detailed PM requirements for each machine, cleaning and lubrication requirements and procedures, inspection procedures and activities, and all of the forms required to facilitate these processes. Ultimately, a PM manual is produced. However, it is important to note that the PM manual, like a quality manual, is of greatest value when it is created through and by the work of the self-directed TPM teams as the final step in the process--after the challenging and time-consuming planning, data gathering and priority setting is complete. Short cutting this process by creating a manual first or outside of the TPM teamwork process will short circuit many of the program's benefits.

Achieve Your Level

Phase three of TPM is to ensure that all new equipment is specified, procured, installed and operated to achieve a defined level of high performance and, most importantly, low life cycle costs. The key here is to recognize that while up to 80% of life cycle costs are determined at the design or specification stage, most of those costs are actually spent during the operation and maintenance of the equipment. This phase of the process focuses on lowering those life cycle costs. Involvement by operators and maintenance staff in the specification and procurement process is key here, as is early and thorough training on the equipment's operation and maintenance.

Before CEOs commit to a TPM program, they must be aware that a sizeable investment of time, money and training effort will be required before substantial results will be seen. But substantial results will indeed come to those who embrace this approach. CEOs also must realize that TPM is a drastic step that, like the concept of "total quality," can change the corporate culture. The best CEOs will not only realize this, but will welcome it and also TPM as synergistic complements to what should be an advancing facility quality and continuous improvement environment.

Dan Marcus, TDC Consulting Inc, Amherst, Wisconsin