Maintenance & Reliability · Program Guideline
Total Productive Maintenance TPM Pillar Structure
Define, implement, and measure the eight pillars of TPM to reduce breakdowns, improve OEE, and embed a culture of zero-loss production.
Review Cycle
Quarterly
Department
Reliability
Application
Facility Wide
Version
1.0
Program Overview
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a holistic approach to equipment management that aims to achieve zero breakdowns, zero defects, and zero accidents by involving every employee — from operators to senior management. The eight TPM pillars provide a structured framework for maximising overall equipment effectiveness (OEE):
- Autonomous Maintenance — operators perform daily cleaning, inspection, and lubrication.
- Planned Maintenance — scheduled interventions based on MTBF and condition data.
- Quality Maintenance — defect prevention through process control and root cause analysis.
- Focused Improvement — kaizen events targeting the six big losses.
- Early Equipment Management — design-for-maintainability during procurement.
- Training & Education — skill development for operators and technicians.
- Safety, Health & Environment — zero-harm culture integrated with each pillar.
- TPM in Administration — apply lean principles to support processes.
Scope & Applicability
This TPM pillar structure applies to all manufacturing and process industries — including automotive, food & beverage, packaging, chemical, and metal fabrication. It is designed for use by:
- Reliability & maintenance teams implementing or auditing a TPM programme.
- Production supervisors training operators on autonomous maintenance.
- Continuous improvement teams (CI, lean, six sigma) integrating TPM with existing management systems.
All assets designated as critical (impact on safety, quality, or throughput) fall under the scope of this programme.
Core Metrics & Variables
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness = Availability × Performance × Quality. Track hourly/daily per asset. Target >85% for world-class.
- Mean Time Between Failures = Total Operating Time / Number of Failures. Drives planned maintenance intervals.
- Mean Time To Repair = Total Downtime / Number of Repairs. Indicates technician skill and spares availability.
- Planned Maintenance Percentage = (Planned Downtime Hours / Total Downtime Hours) × 100. Target >90%.
- Autonomous Maintenance Audit Score — operator competency assessed on a 5-point scale across cleaning, inspection, and defect tagging.
Roles & Responsibilities
- TPM Coordinator / Champion — owns the overall programme, leads pillar leader meetings, reports OEE to site leadership.
- Pillar Leaders — one per pillar; set targets, track progress, and facilitate kaizen events.
- Operators — perform autonomous maintenance tasks (daily cleaning, inspection, minor adjustments), log abnormalities in CMMS.
- Maintenance Technicians — execute planned maintenance, support operators during breakdowns, analyse failure data.
- Quality / Process Engineers — lead quality maintenance pillar, define defect standards and control plans.
- Safety Representative — ensures all pillar activities comply with OH&S regulations.
Implementation & Tracking
1
Assess Baseline OEE — calculate current OEE (Availability × Performance × Quality) for all critical assets. Identify the six big losses and prioritise the pillar that addresses the biggest gap.
2
Form Cross-Functional Pillar Teams — assign one pillar leader per pillar. Each team includes operators, a technician, a quality rep, and a safety rep. Define charter, meeting cadence (weekly), and reporting format.
3
Roll Out Autonomous Maintenance (7 Steps) — step 1: initial cleaning; step 2: countermeasure sources of contamination; step 3: cleaning/lubrication standards; step 4: general inspection; step 5: autonomous inspection; step 6: workplace organisation; step 7: full self-management. Audit after each step.
4
Build Planned Maintenance Schedules — use MTBF / MTTR data to define daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks. Link to spares min/max levels. Assign tasks to technicians in the CMMS.
5
Execute Focused Improvement Kaizen — select one chronic loss per quarter. Run a 1-week kaizen event using DMAIC. Track pre/post OEE impact. Standardise successful countermeasures.
6
Monthly Review & Adjust — pillar leaders report OEE, MTBF, PMP, and AM audit scores at the monthly TPM steering meeting. Adjust targets quarterly based on trend lines.