July 17, 2008
TPM Autonomous Maintenance Tip
Maintenance departments spent a lot of energy in designing their strategies to best maintain production equipment.
We often see that - in classic maintenance strategies - engineers and technicians only meet the equipment when it is already too late (breakdown) or when it is scheduled (PM/PdM).
A lot of breakdowns slip through our fingers because our classic approach is not sufficient to tackle all of them. If we take a closer look we will notice that the resistant amount of breakdowns is often due to “abnormal” conditions.
PM/PdM typically deals with “natural” predictable and accepted wear and not with “abnormal” wear. Abnormal wear can - for example - be caused by dirt contamination or wrong settings of the machine resulting in crashes and deformation of components, and in a later stage a breakdown. 80% percent of breakdowns are failures of mechanical components. Mechanical failures have a “life cycle”. Sometimes this is 5 minutes - sometimes it can take weeks or even months and years before a hidden cause of failure results in an actual breakdown.
Production operators spent the majority of their time on and around their equipment. While doing so they build up a sensory database and broaden their experience with their equipment’s behavior. They are best placed to detect abnormalities in a very early stage. Operators can thus be the eyes and ears for maintenance. You will be surprised how well they know their equipment and how valuable their input is.
Moving towards Maintenance Excellence is in the first place abandoning the statement “Production Makes Parts and Maintenance Makes Machines”
TPM/Autonomous Maintenance Programs enable your operators to participate in maintaining their equipment. Operators perform daily checks and cleaning tasks on their equipment and have regularly contact with maintenance technicians.
This will result in increased ownership, performance awareness and better relationship between maintenance and production. It is the only way to achieve “Zero Breakdowns”. There is only one goal for both of them: Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
Maintenance is often as seen as a department next to the production department – but – maintenance should be a part of the production department with shared objectives and common goals. The Voice Of The Customer comes in the first place. Always.
Reader tip provided by Chris Vanschooren
Supervisor Training and Team Implementation
Pfizer NV. Manufacturing
Puurs Antwerp
Belgium
Thanks Chris - your stainless steel, diamond plate, Reliabilityweb.com coffee mug is on the way!
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