TPM is a transformational tool When the topic is being discussed, fundamentally two questioned is to be answered.

One is what TPM is and the second is what short of transformation is possible with the aid of TPM. Here the shortened form TPM stands for Total Productive Maintenance. At the same time those who want to define the term in broader context in the purpose of showing full potential of the concept as a transformational tool define TPM as Total Productive Maintenance & management. When the origin of the concept TPM is examined, it can be traced that the concept has gradual development into present day situation. At the beginning it was short of preventive maintenance system practiced by mainly US Navy for the purpose of reducing failure rate in their ships and military/naval equipment when they engaged with enemies in 2nd World War. Simply they wanted a more reliable operation with their military hard wears so in 1940s they started Preventive Maintenance in manufacturing plants that were supplying US war efforts as well. The idea was simple. They replaced whatever the spare parts in their plants and equipment at the end of predetermined life span. This process was carried out regardless of actually the spare parts going to be replaced is weather likely to fail or not. In the times of 1940s this was a dramatic approach that increased the reliability of US military equipment considerably during the Great War. This was the origin of the evolution of TPM and it began in the US. But TPM was fully evolved into present day state in the Japan. In 1950s after self-destructive world war two was over, Japan was a war torn country and her industries were struggling to survive. At this period Japanese managers were started to study the US Preventive Maintenance methods and finally towards 1970s concept TPM was appeared in the Japan. In order to avoid keeping two teams for maintenance and production forced by labor shortage condition of Japan at that time, a Toyota subsidiary Nippon Denso was the pioneer company to start practicing of TPM. Their argument was attractive. They argued that routine maintenance of machineries can be done with machine operators attached to production department and maintenance staff is only needed for more specialized maintenance activities. Gradually the concept Total Productive Maintenance was fully developed and thus now TPM is not only limited to engineering and production departments, but also it covers Sales, R&D, HR and all other departments.

Now it can be expressed that TPM is a system aims to create a culture and environment that constantly tries to maximize the effectiveness of the entire production system. Main target of a TPM organization is achieving zero breaks down, zero accidents and zero defects. In order to achieve these targets hands on approach is used getting direct involvement of all employees from top management to front line workers. By initiating a TPM program in an organization, it is expected to increase productivity and decrease losses through improving the people in the organization and improving the equipment of the organization. Because TPM is a program that transforms the organization as well as strive to achieve organizational goals with existing people and existing machines. Furthermore there are five basic concepts of TPM. One is involvement of everyone in the organization under this workforce is organized into a pyramid of overlapping small groups and machine operators are brought to do small maintenance activities of their own machines. Next concept is practicing prevention rather than cure. Here concepts like predictive maintenance, condition based maintenance and maintenance prevention etc.is practiced. Next concept of TPM is using hands on approaches for problem solving. Under this bringing equipment into their ideal sites, extensive visual management and creating well organized, uncluttered, clean environment in the workplace are included. Next concept is promoting automation in the factory and Final concept is building a profitable operation through making production more economical by eliminating accidents, quality defects and breakdowns. In the light of above over view regarding the concept of TPM, now it can be examined the fact that how it becomes a transformational tool. This possible transformation in an organization with the introduction of Total Productive Maintenance basically can be seen in people of the organization, equipment and machineries of the organization. As a whole this transformation should be able to see in performance measurements of the organization and finally in the company profit and loss account also. When it comes to closely examine transformation of people of the organization with introduction and adherent to TPM in an organization, a dramatic transformation of people should be able to be seen. Normally in a place where TPM is not practicing, what is visible is that machine operators just operate machines and whenever there is a problem or breakdown of

machines, engineering team is supposed to attend to it and rectify it. Simply the attitude of production team is I run. You maintain But with the introduction of TPM in an organization, machine operators are educated and trained to carry out cleaning, lubrication and inspection of machines they operate as well as routine maintenance of machines they operate. In this process machine operators are undergone through vast knowledge enhancement program and finally clear skill and attitude transformations of operators are resulted. After undergoing this transformation process new attitude of production operators would be I run, I maintain. Furthermore machine operators of production department would start sensing a pride by being able to understand and maintain their own machines ultimately resulting an up lift of moral of machine operators. Due to implementation and following of TPM a clear transformation would be able to be seen in machineries of the organization also. As autonomous maintenance becoming successful clear reduction of failures of machineries would be experienced. Through Kaizan suggestions, machine performances would be made optimal with the adhering TPM in an organization. Even machine and factory layout would be changed in order to make working environment safe and worker friendly and also to increase productivity of the operation. People of the organization would become self-directing and would be looking after their equipment without having to be reminded. As TPM challenge achieving zero accidents, with the introduction of TPM, it can be expected that, not only factory environment, but also entire organizational environment would be transformed into a safer place. Employees would be able to understand and point out unsafe conditions in their work environment, unsafe act in their daily work and hazardous areas of the organization, so that overall safety standard would become high finally making the organization a safer place. When an organization is going through TPM implementation process, 5S is in the foundation of the process. In other words high degree of 5S should be there prior to start TPM. This means definitely work environment would be clean, uncluttered and well organized. In other words with TPM the organization would be transformed into a place where everything in place and place for everything

Other than this the organization as a whole would have 1.5 to 3 time increase in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), also reduction of production cost or the organization would be 30% to 50%. Inventory reduction of the organization is expected to be 50% and 5 to 10 times moral boost of employees is also expected. In fact it is obvious that these dramatic improvements in key performance indices of the organization resulted due to transformation caused by TPM in the organization will be displayed in profit and loss account of the organization also. After the world war two, it is a known fact that most of Japanese industries used to support their war efforts were in rubbles due to intense bombing during the war. But towards 1970s most of those industries back in full swing and competing in the world market. There may be many reasons behind this quick recovery. But powerfulness of TPM as a transformational tool is also definitely among them.

W.M.B.T.Chandrasekara, 13 batch, TPM Practitioner program. ILM.