Did you know, one of the worldwide aerospace industry suppliers has been implementing Total Productive Maintenance since 1996?

In the year 1996, a unionized aerospace industry supplier organization recognized it was facing a problem. They were lacking on-time completion of their orders and their customers were pushing for shorter lead times and cost reductions.

Approximately 80% of their maintenance hours were used for emergency work orders. In October 1997 over 1660 hours were consumed by unplanned maintenance in just one area. But 10 months later that number dropped to less than 30 hours. There was a decrease of around 99%.

In another sector, they were able to decrease almost 98% in the number of unplanned maintenance hours in a time span of 8 months. The Continuous Improvement Manager of the organization attributes their remarkable success to a dedicated and hardworking maintenance team implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) program.

The organization started implementing TPM from a small area which was critical to their process but was experiencing chronic problems. Apart from machines, there was a huge resistance in the people of the organization towards TPM. To remove the resistance, the organization started with training sessions. The training begins by cleaning, inspecting, lubricating, and performing corrective work on a piece of machinery and once it was cleaned, they would paint the machinery.

In the beginning, the people were unwilling to participate in TPM events. But later when they started noticing the improvements accomplished under the TPM events, the acceptance within the team increased.

The organization created Equipment Improvement Teams (EITs) to work on resolving equipment-associated issues. The top management acknowledges the work done by the EIT teams for solving all the problems and working dedicatedly towards implementing TPM for successful organizational transformation. The organization described TPM as one of the most successful co-management programs ever started in the organization.

Hence, as you can see, even this organization saw resistance to the organizational transformation initiative through TPM. However, with efforts by the team, everything was resolved, and the results were out. The organization was also able to save a lot of time on its manpower. They were able to align teams which further lead to shorter lead times.

Today, with competition in industry at an all-time high, TPM is one of the key frameworks which stands between success and failure of equipment/ machine/ asset for any organization in its journey of continual improvement. Hence, the benefits of TPM have been seen across the organizations and industries, so have you started implementing TPM?

Compiled by Faber Priyal & Faber Mayuri