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We've got information about Total
Productive Maintenance training and trade shows available to you if
you visit our Events Calendar
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| Browse the . . . |
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| where you'll find books on
total productive maintenance. |
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| In 1996 MRC Bearings, a unionized aerospace
industry supplier, recognized it had a problem. They were behind on their
orders. Their customers were pushing for shorter lead times and cost reductions. |
| Approximately eighty percent of their maintenance
hours were dedicated to emergency work orders. In October of 1997 over
one thousand, six hundred and sixty hours were consumed by unplanned maintenance
in just one area. Ten months later that number fell to less than thirty
hours. That's over a 98% decrease. |
| In another area they were able to achieve
almost a 99% decrease in the number of unplanned maintenance hours in an
eight-month period. Greg Folts, Manager of Continuous Improvement at MRC
attributes their remarkable success to having a hardworking, dedicated
maintenance team and implementing a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
program. |
| "We started slow, beginning with a small area
that was critical to our process but was experiencing chronic problems,"
said Folts. "At first, a lot of people were skeptical and not really interested
in getting involved with TPM," he said. "We had a core of people who were
excited about TPM and we enlisted the help of people outside of our organization
to work with us," Folts said. MRC worked with Preston Ingalls, President
of Marshall Institute, to organize their TPM efforts. He continued, "Preston
helped us get started, but he was also our best cheerleader. He got our
folks fired up about TPM." One of MRC's customers, Pratt-Whitney, also
supported their efforts by facilitating MRC's first TPM event and sharing
their TPM practices with MRC. |
| MRC began with a week-long TPM event. Folts
explained they would begin by cleaning, inspecting, lubricating, and performing
corrective work on a piece of machinery. Once a machine was cleaned, it
would be painted. At first, people were reluctant to participate in TPM
events. As time went on, people began to notice what improvements were
being accomplished under the TPM events. "In fact, the same people that
were hesitating in the beginning were suddenly asking when their machine
would be scheduled for a TPM event," Folts said. |
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| Rick Staples, an Electrician that has been
involved with TPM since it's inception said, "The physical changes are
easy to see. Our machines are more reliable, the area is cleaner and a
lot more pleasant atmosphere to work in. Other changes, to those of us
that work here every day, are not as easily detected. For instance; several
people who were totally against TPM at the start, have now willingly participated
in TPM workouts or equipment improvement teams. |
| Another individual, who one told me to keep
my TPM away from his machines, now is a fully trained TPM Coordinator in
his area. It's these types of things that truly amaze me. The culture change
is slow, but it's happening." |
| MRC formed Equipment Improvement Teams (EITs)
to work on resolving equipment-related issues. Folts credits the EITs with
a success that was critical in their adoption of TPM. He explained they
had a piece of equipment with chronic problems. It was breaking down monthly
requiring three or four days each time to fix. He explains, "We were really
frustrated by this problem, we kept fixing it only to see it break down
again." |
| The Equipment Improvement Team took on this
problem and discovered the original manufacturer had used a sub-spec coupling
on a drive unit. The problem was solved by upgrading to the proper coupling.
This fix alone increased the efficiency on this piece of equipment by sixteen
percent. "By taking the time to find the root of the failures, rather than
just fixing the symptoms, we were able to solve this problem. In the years
following this repair, the problem was completely eliminated. That success
showed a lot of people in the company that TPM can make everyone's daily
life easier as well as improving productivity," Folts said. |
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| After the initial success, followed by eight
TPM events, MRC expanded their TPM efforts to their second facility. They
created a TPM Steering Committee at their second site and also created
a Policy group to coordinate the efforts of both facilities. The President
of MRC Bearings, Bengt Nilsson joined the Policy group as an active member.
"Having the company president working with us to drive TPM sent a clear
message to everyone that this was not just another flavor of the month
program," said Folts. |
| Don Russell was then solicited to assist in
driving the process as the TPM Coordinator. "We have been very fortunate
to have fantastic support from both management as well as our U.A.W Union
personnel," said Russell. In a recent MRC company newsletter, President
Nilsson is pictured shoulder to shoulder with the TPM Area Coordinators.
TPM at MRC has been described as one of the most successful co-management
programs ever started at MRC. Mr. Nilsson said, "I am very pleased and
proud of how the whole organization, after the initial skepticism and hesitation,
enthusiastically embraced the TPM concept. It is of utmost importance to
have reliable and well maintained machinery in order to serve our customers
well and to get on-time deliveries. A well developed TPM program is one
of the cornerstones in our drive for manufacturing excellence." |
| MRC trained ten TPM Area Coordinators who
are dedicated to TPM one week each month. These TPM Coordinators organize
TPM events in their areas, also lead EITs, and make sure the process keeps
working. MRC has begun to create full-time TPM teams. One such team, comprised
of Jeff Franklin, an Electrician and Jim Klugh, a Mechanic, and Jeff Johnson,
an Operator, were able to correct a long-standing equipment problem which
reduced the scrap produced by that equipment to almost zero. |
| Folts and Russell attribute their success
in implementing TPM to seven things. Russell said, "We realized early on
that we couldn't do it all. So we identified a few areas that we felt were
key, we did those things, and we did them well." The areas that MRC focused
on were: |
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| Preventative maintenance |
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Putting predictive maintenance process in place (i.e., vibration analysis
equipment)
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Cleaning the machines, resulting in inspection
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Creating standards on the equipment for cleaning, lubrication, and daily
checks
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Collecting data on downtime
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Creating Equipment Improvement Teams
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Creating TPM Area Coordinators
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| From this experience, Russell suggests organizations
beginning TPM programs start small and keep it simple. |
| Did MRC learn any lessons implementing TPM?
Folts said, "We learned that training is a key to being successful with
TPM. We did some initial TPM awareness training for the organization, about
one week of training with the operators, and some for the mechanics. But,
looking back we could have had quicker success if we had done more training."
Folts also credits their success to the support of their management, the
U.A.W. union, the hard work of the people at MRC, involvement of Marshall
Institute, and the support of their customers. "Ultimately this is a people
issue and we are lucky to have the right people involved," he said. |
| Thinking back about the initial resistance
to TPM, Don Russell laughs and says, "At first a lot of folks here defined
TPM as 'Totally Painted Machines'. Now I can say we all define TPM as 'Taking
Pride in our Machines'." |
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