Productivity is beyond a Mathematical Formula

What is TPM* ? TPM is Total Productive Maintenance. Total Perfect Manufacturing, Total People Management, Total Profit Management and Total Productive Management are other acronyms for TPM . TPM is a stepwise process to Achieve and Maintain the highest level of Productivity in a manufacturing scenario. Developments are underway for applying TPM to service industry even. TPM is extremely useful in converting a traditional boss-subordinate, master-servant, I say you do, you tell I do styles of management into a participative management style. TPM synonymous with cultural change in the organization. Productivity is defined, mathematically, as the ratio of output to input in a production environment. Though many measurement yardsticks exist in many companies such as out put per machine, output per day, output per person etc, it is very essential to understand output as a combination of factors like Production output/unit time, Quality of the output (zero defects) Cost of production / unit output, On Time Deliveries to Customers, Safety and health at workplace, Zero effect on Environment and Morale of the people working for the company. This is something beyond a simple mathematical formula. As for the inputs, they are the usual ones viz., capital money, equipment, people, materials etc.,TPM is beyond a mathematical formula. Maximizing Productivity means to maximize each of above parameters viz., P,Q,C,D,S and M. The TPM way of increasing productivity is to not only to maximize the outputs but also simultaneously reduce inputs. While to achieve high Productivity is a task that must be undertaken, it is equally vital that these achievements are Maintained for all time to come.Obviously, this is possible only when all out participation of each person, connected to the company activities, exists. This is the meaning of Total. Hence the name, Total Productive Maintenance. Why TPM ? Any business looks at maximizing profits. Any activity which does not look at making profits as target is not a business activity as the case with many non-profit seeking organizations. Businesses have competition. It is in business, one has to be better than the competitors. Businesses which have no competition, like monopoly businesses,also need to maximize their profits. In any case, profits to be made with high level of social responsibility. TPM is a tool to achieve such objectives effectively.

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It is highly essential to constantly work for Customer Satisfaction. Culture of a business organization is also revealed in Employee Satisfaction, Social Satisfaction and Global Satisfaction. In todays parlance of high-tech products and high competition, one must be highly reliable, flexible and price competitive for keeping customers happy on one side coupled with cost competitiveness (cost is what a company incurs to make a product) and employee satisfaction at home. Due to high growth of service industry, manufacturing industry is not able to attract skilled and talented people to work for. Manufacturing industry has a bad reputation of dirty, difficult and dangerous workplaces ! Also the Employee satisfaction is seldom low. Business strategy and operational excellence go together and one cannot survive without the other. In the realm of multi-product manufacturing, customer needs are very diversified. Companies must respond with high level of flexibility in operations with quick change-overs in tune with customer requirements in terms of variety of configuration of parts / products together with short batch sizes demanded by customers. High reliability in quality (one shot good product) consistency and On-Time-Deliveries is the order of the day. Ever rising labour and material costs cannot permit rework, scrap and low yield of materials in manufacturing processes. Equipment costs and their obsolesce demands that the machines be used to their peak capacities with Lowest Life-Cycle-Costs. Typically, TPM companies achieve such contrasting targets easily. Some of Benefits of TPM Production outputs to 1.5 to 2.0 times, Zero Manufacturing Defects, Cost reduction in manufacturing ranging from 15 to 30 % 100% on time deliveries of existing products to customers and quick New Product Development, Zero workplace Accidents, Zero Health Hazards and Zero Environmental effects and High employee morale which manifests in cheerful and confident attitudes, are the basic deliverables associated with JIPM-TPM process. This achievement is made possible only by an excellent all people participation in the process. TPM is a well designed and comprehensive way out to achieve all those tangible and intangible benefits. TPM way of working provides for meeting each of the requirements stated above in a very thorough and structured way thanks to JIPM which has been constantly on the job for past 5 decades and over. This is our experience.

* TPM is a property of Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM), Tokyo, Japan. JIPM has originated, developed and promoting TPM worldwide since late 1960s.

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