1. Stability Tools TPM What is TPM ?
TPM stands for Total Productive Maintenance and covers two main types.
Planned Maintenance:-
Major activities carried out by the plant maintenance team at set intervals to prevent known failure conditions from occurring.
Autonomous Maintenance:-
Minor maintenance activities such as checking, lubrication and minor adjustments. All tasks carried out by the operators in their cell.
Why do we need TPM ?
Using TPM enables us to monitor our equipment and escalate concerns prior to failure.
It encourages ownership through learning, as each operator is trained in the maintenance requirements for their particular process.
TPM’s main objectives are: to ensure a quality product is produced repeatedly, and at the required volumes with the correct level of investment.
Planned Maintenance Tools
There are three main tools required to ensure that we have a robust Planned Maintenance System, and they are:-
Detailed Standards of how to carry out maintenance activities. These standards will usually be supplied by the Equipment manufacturer and held in a known location for reference, or will be written by the maintenance department using the Standard Work Format, where manuals are not available.
Visual System to show which tasks are due and when, and a reference document to show who is the best resource to achieve a timely completion. This type of visual system is known as “Kamishibai” which translated means “Story by Cards”.
A predictive system which relies on the inputs of those persons carrying out the checks to ensure relevant information is produced. This system analyses breakdowns by equipment type and failure mode. The system then informs the maintenance department of the required frequency with which to carry out specific tasks.
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2. Stability Tools TPM - Cont
What Does the Visual System Look Like ?
Each planned maintenance task is transferred to a T-card. On this card is the following detail:-
Spares & Tooling Requirements – Which spare parts or tooling are required to carry out the task successfully. This can also be linked to the predictive database and x-references with the stock levels to ensure all spare parts are or will be available and that all tooling will be in a serviceable condition for the due date of the check.
Repair Manual Location – The repair manual will normally be the product manual supplied to the maintenance department by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).
If there is no written standard from the OEM then a set of Standardised work documentation will be written by the Maintenance department. This documentation will detail how the task should be carried out using work element sheets to support.
The reverse side of the card is similar to the front red side except for its colour which is green and an area detailing the next due date for the check and who carried out the last check.
Task Description
Card No
Frequency
Spares Required
Tooling Required
Repair Manual Location
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Task Description – Exactly what the equipment is and what is to be checked.
Card No – Each card is individually numbered and is used when frequency updates are flagged by the predictive computer system.
Frequency – How often the check should be carried out to prevent failure.
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3. Stability Tools TPM - Cont
Visual Display of Work Cards
Every time a work task is completed by an operator the card should be turned over to display the green side of the card. This then highlights at a glance which tasks remain unfinished.
Each column is reviewed by the maintenance manager at the end of the working week. All cards which remain RED are interrogated as to why the work was not carried out as planned. All Green cards are then reviewed for their next due date, in 1 week to 1 year. The card is then moved to its next due dated slot and turned to the Red side to show that it is a due task.
The board should never display a Green card in any other week than the current working week.
Blue cards are for outside contractors and should only be displayed for planned repetitive maintenance activities. The reverse of this card is again green to highlight completion.
The Blue cards are usually placed against supervisory positions, this is mainly for performance tracking purposes.
Red = Work task to be completed
Green = Work Task completed
Blue = Outside Contractor
How the visual display system works
Each column of the visual display board represents a one week period. Each row of five slots across the board represents an individual maintenance technicians workload.
The work cards are usually distributed by skill set, electrical, mechanical, hydraulics etc. These skill sets are visually managed by the use of a core skill versatility matrix which should be displayed next to the work card board.
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4. Stability Tools TPM - Cont
What Does Autonomous Maintenance Mean
What do the sheets look like ?
The definition of Autonomous is – Self Reliant. Therefore this level of maintenance focuses on the owner or user of a piece of equipment to monitor and conduct basic maintenance tasks.
This aim of this Element of TPM is to reduce minor stoppages and to give advanced warning of known failure types thus reducing product defects and equipment downtime.
The checks and maintenance tasks which are to be carried out by operators are simple but important. Failure to execute these checks regularly can and will result in preventable downtime.
The checks are designed by the maintenance department based upon their current knowledge of regular concerns and their occurrence frequency.
All checks are recorded on a common TPM schedule for the area and signed off as completed at the end of shift.
Maintenance Check Sheet
The detailed check sheets are placed in the back of each standardised work process folder. This ensures that as part of the operator’s standard training all TPM checks are covered and understood.
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Each check has a photograph or drawing of the piece of equipment to be checked, with numbered arrows pointing to each check area and corresponding to the numbered check item detail on the right hand side of the sheet. Each detailed check item then has its frequency placed in the far right hand column.
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5. Stability Tools TPM - Cont
TPM Check Schedule
The schedule covers each check to be carried out over a one month period by the entire team. Obviously this depends upon the size of the team. When the team leader to operator ratio of 1:5 – 1:8 has been exceeded then more than one schedule may be required.
Green – Ok; no problems can be seen or task has been carried out successfully.
Orange – An issue has been found whilst carrying out a check. This issue will not cause imminent failure or a stoppage but if not addressed within the next day could result in equipment downtime.
Red – A critical failure was highlighted and maintenance were called immediately.
At the end of each shift the team leader signs off on all checks to ensure that they have all been carried out as planned.
These documents are handed back to maintenance at the end of each month for data collection, and the new sheet is placed at the team board or on the relevant piece of equipment.
New or re-occurring problems are dealt with via the problem and countermeasure meeting to help reduce or eliminate the problem or it’s effects.
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As each check is carried out at the desired frequency then the circle corresponding to that check is coloured in one of the following colours.
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6. Stability Tools TPM - Cont
The maintenance manager then conducts a weekly walk of all production areas to review maintenance issues with all areas. During these walks all visible red tags will be reviewed as to their date of placement.
Any tags which have not been addressed, which means work is in progress or completed, will be escalated at the next maintenance shift handover meeting. The outcome of this meeting will be fed back immediately to the team leader.
TPM Tag System
The Tag system has been developed to enable communication on non critical issues. The Tag is supplied in one piece and is perforated through the middle. The top half and bottom half of the tag hold duplicate information and are completed by the team leader on notification of an orange mark on the schedule or via an Andon call from an operator.
The top half of the Tag is tied with a piece of chord to the piece of equipment with the concern. The tag must be tied as close as is feasibly possible to the failing area so as to act as a visual guide to the assigned maintenance operator.
The bottom half of the Tag is then torn off and taken to the maintenance post box at the end of the shift.
Maintenance review the post box at the start of the next shift and assign the Tags to a technician with the relevant skill sets to carry out the task to the required standard.
Once the task has been completed successfully the Top half of the Tag is removed and signed off by both technician and the Team leader for that area.
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