Heat transfer

The TPM approach is heavily orientated around employee empowerment, and encourages
employees to take ownership of their machinery, which in turn increases production uptime.
TPM allocates the jobs traditionally completed by maintenance personnel to all plant personnel.
That way everyone is responsible for machinery and equipment upkeep. A TPM regime will
typically have operators carry out basic manufacturing maintenance duties and cleaning regimes,
and encourage a proactive attitude toward spotting issues. This frees up maintenance staff to
perform more value-adding tasks.
Aerospace industry supplier MRC Bearings were able to achieve almost a 98 per cent reduction
in unplanned maintenance hours within eight months of introducing a TPM program. A major
TPM event would involve cleaning, inspecting, lubricating, and performing corrective work on a
piece of machinery, after which the entire machine was painted.
Employee resistance was an initial concern for the company, but the positive results soon
changed people’s minds. “In fact, the same people that were hesitating in the beginning were
suddenly asking when their machine would be scheduled for a TPM event,” said Greg Folt,
Manager of Continuous Improvement at MRC Bearings.
“At first a lot of folks here defined TPM as ‘Totally Painted Machines',” said TPM coordinator Don
Russell. “Now I can say we all define TPM as 'Taking Pride in our Machines’.”
TPM is a lean manufacturing philosophy that centers on achieving near-perfect production. The
aims of TPM are high: no breakdowns, no small stops or slow running, no defects, and no
accidents.
You can determine a goal by tracking and compiling the results of your OEE by shift for a month.
Once you have your best results multiply that result for each of the 3 OEE components,
availability, performance, and quality, to calculate your best score. Your best score should be
the goal you want to work toward.