TPM: Healthcare for Equipment

He describes how a tagging system could work: “A yellow tag means an operator identified a potential problem in need of repair, and management schedules maintenance. A red tag means maintenance must respond immediately to prevent safetyrelated problems or equipment breakdown.”

According to Carlino, TPM takes a comprehensive, total approach to maintenance. “Operators contribute their expertise in running the equipment, and maintenance contributes technical knowledge about repairing it. TPM encourages employee engagement. The traditional, us-againstthem mindset is rejected. Everyone in the operation works collectively to maintain the health of the equipment.”

The Missing Piece

Michael J. Trainor, senior consultant at bearings manufacturer SKF Asset Management Services in the company’s service division, sees TPM a little differently. “Organizations have been doing classical TPM for years,” he says, “but they missed the reliability piece.”

Trainor believes TPM is more effective when it’s tied to reliability- centered maintenance (RCM). The overall equipment effectiveness of RCM, combined with the cultural changes of TPM, results in a hybrid approach that eliminates everything that is not necessary to achieve reliability, he says.

RCM is a structured process, originally developed in the airline industry, to determine the equipment maintenance strategies required for a physical asset to ensure it fulfills its intended functions in its present operating context, Trainor explains. RCM supports the planned maintenance and autonomous maintenance pillars of TPM and therefore facilitates continuous improvement.

TPM alone can lead to over-maintaining equipment, says Trainor. “Traditional TPM relies on operator inspections and checks that may not be necessary if a more proactive approach is taken,” he says. “The hybrid approach incorporates preventive and predictive maintenance to diagnose and determine exactly when action needs to be taken.”

“Up to 40% of manufacturing costs can be contributed to maintenance,” Trainor adds. “Downtime, breakdowns and repairs can cost three times as much and take three to five times longer than proactive maintenance procedures.”

Here again, the healthcare analogy seems appropriate. Preventing disease through simple lifestyle changes is much less expensive than treating the body once it’s broken. How much money could be saved if all material handling industries embraced TPM?