Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) implies a close relationship between maintenance
and productivity, highlighting how good care and up-keep of equipments will result
in higher productivity. TPM is the equipment and process improvement strategy that
links many of the elements of a good maintenance program to achieve higher levels of
equipment effectiveness (Williamson, 2000). It is a philosophy of continuous
improvement that creates a sense of ownership in the operator(s) as well as the
supervisors of each machine. It is a process of maintenance management that empowers
the organization with a progressive, continuous philosophy of enabling all manpower
resources to work together to accomplish the mutual goal of manufacturing efficiency.
TPM is an innovative Japanese concept. The origin of TPM implementation can
be traced back to 1951 when preventive maintenance was introduced in Japan.
Nippondenso was the first company to introduce plant-wide preventive maintenance
in 1960 (Venkatesh, 2005). Modern manufacturing requires that the organizations
that want to be successful and achieve world-class manufacturing must have effective
and efficient maintenance. One way to improve the performance of maintenance
activities is to implement the TPM system (Hartmann, 2000). Today, the competition
has increased dramatically. Customers focus on product quality, delivery time and
cost of product. Due to these factors, the company should introduce a quality system
to improve and increase both quality as well as productivity continuously. TPM is a
methodology that aims to increase the availability of the existing equipments, hence
reducing the need for further capital investment. Again, investment in human
resources can further result in better hardware utilization, higher product quality
and reduced labor costs (Chan et al., 2005). TPM program closely resembles the
popular Total Quality Management (TQM) program. Many of the tools such as
employee empowerment, benchmarking, and documentation used in TQM are also
used to implement and optimize TPM.
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