Developing an Equipment Management Strategy based on TPM principles

by Ross Kennedy, 9 April 2019

Is your Plant & Equipment like a company vehicle?

Let’s use this simple analogy to look at Equipment Management Strategy. 

The vehicle is purchased by your company to a specification and comes with an Operator’s manual and a Service manual. The vehicle is owned by your company, however it is sometimes allocated to a specific employee to care for it and arrange its regular service.

The servicing and major repairs are conducted by Mechanics (Tactical experts) while minor servicing (topping up oil, water, air etc) are done by the employee (Frontline). The Designer (car company) who is focused on minimising the Life Cycle Cost of the vehicle (Strategic) prepares and provides the Operating and Service Manuals.

However, some vehicles are not allocated to specific employees and are common pool vehicles. These vehicles normally have much higher operating costs, are less reliable, are in poorer condition and have a much reduced resale value (worth to your company).

TPM applies the same learning above to the Life Cycle Cost of your Plant & Equipment.

The Plant & Equipment is purchased and owned by your company and comes with technical specifications on how to operate it (SOPs) and service it (Maint / Service Manual).

The difference is whether we allocate the ownership to the Production Manager and Operators (TPM strategy) or keep it as a common asset looked after by Maintenance (traditional strategy of ‘I operate – you fix’).

The cost and reliability implications can be enormous.

If a TPM focused Equipment Management Strategy approach is taken then the way we maintain the Plant & Equipment becomes clear.

How does your sites Equipment Management Strategy compare? Maybe it’s time to re-focus your strategy with TPM.

If you would like to learn more about Australasian TPM and developing an Equipment Management Strategy contact myself Ross Kennedy at ross.kennedy@ctpm.org.au.

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