Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a way of running equipment so that it is always ready when production needs it. It makes operators and maintenance partners in caring for machines, and it attacks every loss — not only breakdowns.
What is OEE?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is the main TPM measure. It multiplies three factors:
- Availability: the share of planned time the machine actually runs
- Performance: how fast it runs compared with its ideal speed
- Quality: the share of good output first time
A machine with 90% availability, 95% performance and 99% quality has an OEE of about 85%.
The six big losses
- Breakdowns
- Set-up and adjustment
- Minor stops
- Reduced speed
- Start-up rejects
- Production rejects
The eight pillars of TPM
- Autonomous maintenance by operators
- Planned maintenance
- Focused improvement
- Quality maintenance
- Early equipment management
- Training and education
- Safety, health and environment
- TPM in administration
Where to start
Choose one model line, measure OEE honestly for a few weeks, run autonomous maintenance steps one to three with the operators, and fix the biggest loss with a focused improvement team. Expand only when the model line holds its gains.
