Where does TPM maintenance come from?
TPM was developed in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, building on American preventive maintenance, and was formalised by Seiichi Nakajima and the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM). Its core idea: reliability is not just the maintenance department's job, because the people who run the machine every shift notice early signs of deterioration.
TPM belongs to the same family as the rest of lean manufacturing. Flow, standard work and short lead times all assume the equipment runs when it is needed; total productive maintenance is the discipline that makes that true.
What are the eight pillars of TPM?
Most TPM programmes are organised around eight pillars, built on a foundation of 5S:
- Autonomous maintenance – operators clean, inspect, lubricate and tighten their own equipment.
- Planned maintenance – a preventive maintenance programme scheduled on failure history and condition, with critical spare parts held so planned jobs are not stopped by a missing part.
- Focused improvement – small cross-functional teams attack specific losses.
- Quality maintenance – setting equipment conditions that prevent defects.
- Early equipment management – designing in maintainability from lessons learned.
- Training and education – building operator and technician skills.
- Safety, health and environment – removing hazards from equipment and the workplace.
- TPM in administration – applying the same thinking to office and support processes.
What are the six big losses, and how does OEE fit?
TPM targets six big losses: breakdowns, set-up and adjustment, small stops, reduced speed, start-up rejects and production rejects. OEE combines availability, performance and quality into one figure so teams can see which losses matter most on each asset.
How do you start TPM maintenance?
- Pick a model machine or line that matters to the business.
- Measure its losses, including small stops that are rarely recorded.
- Run initial cleaning with operators and maintenance together, tagging every abnormality found.
- Set cleaning, inspection and lubrication standards.
- Review losses daily in tier meetings and escalate what the team cannot fix.
- Spread the approach only once the model area is stable.
For example, a bottling team picks its filler, logs every small stop for two weeks and finds one recurring jam behind most lost time.
What are the common TPM mistakes?
- Treating TPM as a maintenance-department initiative rather than a shared operating discipline.
- Chasing an OEE number without understanding its losses.
- Writing a planned maintenance programme the team has no time or spare parts to deliver, so the schedule slips and breakdowns return.
- Cleaning blitzes without standards, so equipment drifts back.
- Tagging abnormalities faster than they are closed, which kills operator engagement.