What is TPM in industrial maintenance?

TPM is an acronym widely used to refer to the correct or effective maintenance of industries. It can also be defined as a strategy or system to improve equipment longevity and productivity that also involves mainly human resources. In this post you will learn what is TPM in industrial maintenance in depth.

TPM has many advantages such as cost or time reduction. And well implemented and developed it is never a disadvantage. By the way, knowing what is a gmao is key to apply a proper industrial maintenance in your company. 

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What exactly is tpm in industrial maintenance?

TPM stands for Total Productive Maintenance and refers to the industrial and manufacturing sector .

It can be defined as a strategy and its ultimate goal is to eliminate stoppages caused by problems in the operation of equipment, engines and other industrial or factory machinery. That is to say, its final objective is to improve the productivity of a factory and for this purpose it eliminates the stoppages caused by problems in the equipment.

The way to achieve this goal is to get all employees and workers in the industry to participate in the maintenance of the machinery on a daily basis. Each one within their possibilities, competences and responsibilities . For example, a simple warning in time that something is not working can be valuable enough. Employees will notice errors or changes much earlier than technicians.

From Mesbook we have a CMMS module fully linked to production and daily operations, where operators can issue warnings before a major problem occurs. It is here where maintenance intervenes and from the same platform is able to intervene the machine with a corrective order and the corresponding action guideline.

What is it used for in factories?

TPM or Total Productive Maintenance in factories serves to improve productivity by eliminating stoppages, manufacturing errors and downtime that can occur due to mechanical, electrical or programming failures in machinery.

Advantages of implementing total productive maintenance

There are huge advantages of implementing TPM or Total Productive Maintenance, although it also has some costs as you can imagine. The main one is to train all or most of your employees so that in certain cases they can act as technicians.

However, they will not always be required to have the same knowledge or skills as a technician. In many cases, an alarm, an analysis of the situation or a small, effective repair may be sufficient for a few hours or days. And this has enormous advantages. The main one, which is related to the rest, is the time savings.

If employees, who deal with the machinery on a day-to-day basis, are able to detect and solve problems, any inconvenience will exist for less time and therefore, its consequences will be much less.

These are the main advantages of a TPM strategy:

  • Fewer stoppages: If employees are prepared, are familiar with the machinery and are able to understand its operation, they will be able to detect errors at the earliest stage of the production chain or cycle. In other words, this repair becomes a preventive repair and therefore, the error or stoppage sometimes does not even occur. So emergencies are reduced.
  • Unplanned maintenance is reduced: Unplanned maintenance can lead to extra costs, changes in the organization, personnel, etc. It will lead to a deterioration in the operation and quality of all phases. It will lead to a deterioration in the operation and quality of all phases. Thanks to TPM, on the other hand, repairs can be planned in good time and may not even require downtime.
  • Improved performance and productivity: Thanks to TPM, there is more preventive maintenance and less corrective maintenance. This reduces the order backlog, for example, and improves performance and productivity.
  • More safety: As is logical, sometimes mechanical problems or failures or malfunctions of the machines can endanger the physical integrity of the workers. Of course, in factories there are insurances for operators, but the best guarantee and prevention is the TPM. If the operators themselves detect faults, they can be solved much earlier and thus avoid possible accidents. Therefore, one of the main advantages of TPM is safety.
  • Cost reduction: Of course, a correct TPM system improves productivity and lowers costs, which has an impact on the profitability or economic efficiency of a factory and, subsequently, of the company. A TPM system reduces major repairs and therefore avoids costs derived from repairs, hiring of specialized personnel, etcetera. In addition, it avoids losses due to downtime or total stoppages, as well as the dissatisfaction of end customers due to waiting, which in the end could translate into lower demand and even a deterioration of the company's image.
  • All these benefits can be achieved through a digital tool such as Mesbook, defining the preventive plans for each of the equipment, where we will establish periodicities, necessary personnel and spare parts to be consumed.

Phases to implement the TPM methodology

The TPM or Total Productive Maintenance is divided into phases necessary for its correct implementation. They are the following:

  • Adjustment of components.
  • Cleaning and lubrication tasks.
  • Implementation of measures to prevent the accumulation of dirt.
  • General inspections.
  • Autonomous inspections.
  • Creation of systems and standards for maintenance.
  • Logging of tasks, failures and improvement options.

In conclusion, a TPM system that can be properly addressed with Industry 4.0 MES software capable of driving it, analyzing it and making improvements is one of the biggest plus points for a factory looking to improve its productivity and efficiency. At MESbook we offer solutions adapted to all kinds of industrial companies.

Marta Cejudo

Product Manager at MESbook

Marta Cejudo

Industrial organization engineer with 4 years of experience in real-time factory management as KAM.

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