The company implemented Total Productive Maintenance as a keystone for delivering its site improvement strategy. The strategy is focused on improving all elements of the business to guarantee customer satisfaction. After an initial scoping study, it was decided to execute four TPM pilot projects. One of the most successful projects was to increase bottleneck equipment capacity in the winding area, to cope with an unforeseen upsurge in customer demand. High levels of scrap and large batch sizes resulted from poor asset management within the winding area.

The project begun with an initial one-day Introduction to TPM and was followed by TPM training workshops delivered to all the production associates, engineers, and maintenance technicians working in the department. The importance of these workshops cannot be understated, as the most important factor in the success of TPM is the buy-in by employees. They need to have a thorough understanding of TPM and how to put it into practice.

Following on from the training, for the first time in the plant, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) was introduced as the key performance measure (replacing machine output) on the 30 machines which were the focus of the project. While the company expected that the OEE measure would highlight some problems, they were astonished when the overall equipment effectiveness score, on what they had perceived to be their most stable equipment, was found to be <45%. Unfortunately, the emphasis on machine output i.e., keep the machines running at all costs, had created a sticking plaster mentality when it came to equipment maintenance. 

With a baseline measure (OEE) now in place on which to build improvement, a 15-minute daily morning meeting was introduced where a review of the previous 24 hours, with all stakeholders present, was carried out. The worst performing machines were given priority, with maintenance setting the goal of having all 30 machines achieving the target consistently within a four-month period, which was achieved. Once the equipment was returned to showroom condition, the teams then set about introducing several supporting initiatives. These included an operator asset care program, single-minute-exchange-of dies (SMED) projects, introducing statistical process control (SPC), and troubleshooting guides for both operators and maintenance. 

Results Summary:

• 33% increase in OEE
• >65% reduction in scrap
• Increased equipment capacity equal to $1,500,000
• 28% increase in labour efficiency.
• Increased maintenance technician/operating associate job satisfaction.