Tag: sustainable continuous improvement

If you want your company to succeed over the long term you must; operate safely, make a profit and achieve customer satisfaction.

For companies like Tetra Pak, Milliken, Arcelor Mittal, Unilever and Volvo, TPM has become their corporate approach to sustainable continuous improvement.

This blog briefly describes how TPM achieves those goals and what makes it different from other improvement frameworks.

Achieving your business goals

The main aim of TPM is to achieve zero losses. This means zero accidents, zero defects and zero breakdowns.

1. Operating safely. As well as having a specific set of activities, called the Safety, Health and Environment pillar, devoted to achieving zero accidents, the principles for preventing accidents are ingrained in every single TPM activity and resulting operating process.

Zero accidents are possible and in some fields yield added benefits. Many companies in the chemical industry who practise TPM are rewarded with reduced insurance premiums!

2. Making a profit. Each of the 8 pillars of TPM concentrates on eliminating losses and their associated costs. Sustainably reducing costs, not just reducing capacity, results in increased profit.

 

 

It’s not unusual to achieve 30% reduction in manufacturing costs, 50% reduction in inventories and improvement in Overall Equipment Performance of 150-200%.

Losses are not just pursued in manufacturing, but across all the functions of your business and throughout the supply chain.

3. Achieving customer satisfaction. As well as meeting the customer’s quality, cost and delivery expectations, TPM addresses the total product life cycle.

Activities for pre-empting losses not only in design and manufacture but for the customer during use and at end of life disposal are examined in the Early Management pillar.

What makes it different?

I can almost hear you shouting, “Hang on – I can do all that with lean, or the Toyota Production System”. And yes, you could achieve very similar results if you rigorously pursue the elimination of all waste. In fact there are huge areas of overlap in the application, tools and techniques used in the approaches.

However, here are TPM’s distinguishing features.

It’s all presented in one organised framework

Every single recommended step to successfully deploy TPM is detailed in the JIPM 12 steps. As you can see it takes you from preparing your company for the journey, through the ordered deployment of the 8 pillars, to attaining regular application.

 

 

The level of detail in each of the 12 steps, and within each pillar, can initially seem off-putting. But this detail addresses many of the problems encountered if the lean tools and techniques are applied in an ad-hoc manner.

• Senior management buy in
• Inclusion of middle managers
• Sustainability of results
• Provision of adequate resources
• Clear direction and link to company strategy
• Clear structures, roles and responsibilities for every employee

The goal of zero losses

From the outset, the goal is zero losses, as opposed to lean approaches that focus on closing the gap between actual and desired performance. This results in a subtle difference in approach.

To achieve zero condition you need to:

• Transition from a data driven reactive approach to close the gap, to a proactive approach that prevents losses from happening in the first place.
• Support your activities with detailed understanding of what causes all forms of loss and a very detailed understanding of each of your processes.

If you stick with the 12 step plan and follow the structure of each pillar, you will be guided through the layers of complexity.

It does take years of dedication to approach zero losses, but those who have persevered are reaping the rewards.

• If you want to find out more about the future of TPM, it’s integration with Industry 4.0 and how it can help your organisation reduce costs and improve quality then make sure book your place at Industry Forum’s TPM seminar event.  The one-day event will allow you to learn from world-class, award winning manufacturers alongside speakers from the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance.

 

 

 

See full event flyer here

 

If you want to speak to a member of the team to find out more about TPM and how Industry Forum can support your TPM implementation give us a call on +44 (0)121 717 6600 complete our enquiry form or email us at [email protected]