How to Keep Lean Going: Preventive Maintenance 3 - A Word About TPM

Total Productive Maintenance has gotten a lot of attention and for good reason.  Six Sigma has been (at least until recently) all the rage but most companies would be better served if they fully implemented TPM before they attended to Six Sigma.

There's certainly no shortage of info about how to implement TPM, so I won't go into lots of detail here.  (I just did a search on "total productive maintenance over at amazon.com and got 780 hits.)

In my own view, TPM is essentially making sure that maintenance checks are integrated with standard work practices.  Another important aspect is collaboration and partnership between production and maintenance.

Should TPM be a part of any agile or lean implementation?  Without question.  I worked at one steel mill that made TPM the primary focus of it's lean initiative.

Don't make it too complicated, though.  Write the work instructions, making sure that they include maintenance checks.  Implement the work instructions via training and "re-certification".  Follow up to make sure the work instructions are being adhered to.  That will be challenging enough without adding too many bells and whistles.

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