Plant maintenance is to do with maintaining the capital invested , in business production facilities , in fact . The total productive maintenance as a strategy brings in its fold the much desired distinctive cost advantage . The aim of total productive maintenance is zero – loss , zero defect , zero – break down , no rework , no rejection brought by effectiveness of equipment , autonomous and planned maintenance with the back up of a team .
Total productive maintenance ( TPM ) , is a concept pioneered by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance ( JIPM ) , Tokyo , for operational excellence . The total productive maintenance strategy attacks the costs in its own way through its mechanism . The picture given below depicts how TPM attacks costs which has been taken from Business Today January 7th 1999 .
How TPM Attacks Costs ?
TPM attacks on costs and brings productivity , quality , delivery and safety gains . Like all transformation imperatives , the TPM begins by understanding what is wrong and why it is so . While other techniques go about this by emphasizing statistical and analytical techniques , TPM does it simply by allocating responsibilities , however small they might be to workers who are made responsible for the functioning of the machines they work on . If something goes wrong , they fix it .
By the simple expedient of viewing organizational process as micro – activities with one employee or a group of employees , responsible for each of them . TPM ensures that problems are immediately studied and solved . It is a question of applying common sense to common things for uncommon results .
Mr . K . Jairaman , Principal Consultant of Eicher Consultancy observes ” TPM is evolving as a useful instrument of change not only because of its practical , employee – centre nature , but because of its ability to bland effectively into a large range of performance improvement paradigms . “
While TPM , fundamentally , is about efficient utilisation of plants , and the hardware within it , its prowers as a tangible , down to earth method of harnessing better house – keeping and Kaizen , is tremendous . It can be a realistic weapon for cultural transformation across the entire organisation .
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