MU 2017 November December

ADVERTORIAL
Total Productive Maintenance
SMC Business Development Manager Jeff Careless, who advises customers on all aspects
of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), tells Machinery Update how taking a holistic approach
to equipment maintenance can yield significant improvements to production efficiency.
Total Productive Maintenance is
helping all sorts of organisations, from
global corporations to specialist SMEs,
to maximise business efficiency. Often
it is small changes in the
manufacturing process that make the
biggest impact. SMC Pneumatics has
been promoting manufacturing
efficiency for nearly 40 years with its
Continuous Improvement strategy at
the heart of the company’s business
philosophy.
When talking about TPM with customers,
the first thing I do is put it in context
as part of our commitment to Continuous
Improvement in all aspects of an
organisation’s business operation.
But the area where the biggest returns
can be achieved often with just
small changes is Overall Equipment
Effectiveness (OEE) throughout the
manufacturing process. It’s here that
we can advise the Maintenance Engineering
team on how to develop and implement
changes that are focused on proactive
and preventative techniques for improving
equipment reliability.
But first, let’s just dispel some myths about
TPM. Like many aspects of the “new”
connected industry revolution, it is not
actually new. It is simply a different approach
to business efficiency. An effective TPM
policy combines human intervention with the
latest support technology using in-line
diagnostics to pre-empt potential
maintenance issues.
Essentially, TPM brings together the roles
of the production and maintenance teams
with the emphasis on empowering operating
staff to help maintain their equipment. With
the right TPM programme, you can create
shared responsibility for equipment that
encourages greater hands-on involvement
from production staff. This enables the
maintenance staff to focus on overarching
issues such equipment quality, site health &
safety, back office TPM and process
improvements.
How does it work?
So let’s look at what exactly is involved in a
TPM programme. The original concept was
developed back in the 1960s, consisting of the
5S Foundation (Sort, Set in order, Shine,
Standardise and Sustain) with Eight Pillars of
activity supporting this.