Achieving Stable Flow
Root causes analysis of over 500 years line production running time identified that 2 factors contribute to 85% of the causes of breakdowns. Both of these are avoidable. The causes are...
- Poor Equipment condition
- Human error
Moving parts will deteriorate over time and as that occurs the likelyhood of failure increases from possible to likely. The foundation for reliable opeation are the maintenance of basic equiment conditions.
Research into component failure in aircraft identifed that random factors contribute to failures. The the study was unable to identify causal factors but it was able to confirm that natural deterioration was a factor in less than 4% of components. Further analysis of failures in a manufacturing environment has identified that accelerated deterioration is a significant factor in component failures. This can be due to, for example, contamination or scattering of dust and dirt.
Our research mentioned above shows that reducing causes of accelerated wear stabilises and extends the life of around 80% of components. Further more these components can also be serviced using a condition based trigger. That in turn means that maintenance of these components can be scheduled on before a failure occurs. For that reason condition based maintenance is the most value adding and therefore Lean approach to equipment maintenance.
Another major cause of accelerated wear is Human error. This is responsible for around 50% of component failures including installation errors as well as missuse. In fact the original research into aerospace failure modes identified that 80% of component types are susceptable to installation error.
The factors that contribute to human error risk are:
- unclear instructiion,
- complex working methods
- lack of training.
Developing work routines that are easy to do right, difficult to do wrong and simple to learn not only reduces the likelyhood of failure but also provide a vehicle to improve process precision, reduce defects, reduce energy waste and improve material yield. We call this activity Problem Prevention.
Condition Based Maintenance and Problem Prevention are the key to stable operation. That is achieved by systematic development of standarded best practice for correct operation and asset care delivered by front line improvement teams.
The heart of this process is the Asset Improvement Plan (AIP) template, a toolbox designed to assess, stabilise and then optimise equipment performance.
This template is designed from our work with well known and award winning organisations to systematically remove the root causes of failure to free up time to optimise process capability further.
The Visualise Cycle
Helps the team to understand the asset or system under review, how it should work and what its potential is. This cycle provides foundation knowledge to support the development of condition and best practice standards. It also raises understanding of cause/effect mechanisms to supports the development of lasting solutions to equipment problems.
The Restore Cycle
Guides the team in the assessment of asset condition standards and development of best practice for operating and maintaining the asset. This includes the use of Single Point Lessons to structure training and standardise the application of best practices.
The Innovate Cycle
Supports the selections of appropriate focussed improvement and problem prevention tools to systematically increase effectiveness.
Included in this cycle are tools to encourage innovation, improve process capability and apply visual management to make tasks easy to do right, difficult to do wrong.
Towards No Touch Operation
Exemplar organisatons are able to extend average time between intervention to 8 hours or more.
How do they do that?
Lean TPM provides a practical route map to set define basic condition standards, reduce equipment wear rates and prevent the causes of human error. This not only lowers costs but also extends mean time between intervention (MTBI) and releases management and specialist time to carry out more value adding tasks.
In addition, the journey to reducing breakdowns improves awareness of process cause/effect mechanisms. That also lays the foundations of improved collaboration between production and maintenance, encouraging new thinking and innovation.
After breakdowns have been reduced to zero the TPM improvement process targets a reduction in the causes of quality defects. The outcome is increased the time between intervention.
One manufacturer of lighting applied the TPM optimisation toolbox extend time mean time between intervention so that they were able to run additional night shifts during peak demand months without additional labour. In addition to lower inventories and increased material yields, they also increased flexibility to customer demand and reduced development time for new products.
Here optimisation delivered true competitive advantage because it was targeted at areas which enhanced customer service capabilities.
Developing Shared Equipment and Process Ownership
Few of the problems which impact on reliability can be resolved by purely technical improvements.
The challenging but achievable Lean TPM goal of stable flow requires as much attention to raising standards and outlook (i.e. behaviours) as it does to addressing technical weaknesses. It is a journey characterised by shared equipment and process ownership. Click to read more
Uses practical team based improvement projects to engage shop floor functions in a shared improvement agenda. Although the core of the Lean TPM programme involves production and maintenance, the changes delivered through these teams will impact on all operational functions. Involve those functions based on the needs of the project.
These team based activities, use the Asset Improvement Plan to systematically resolve the causes of reactive management and deliver stable and then optimised operations.
As part of this journey, what was previously thought of as management or specialist tasks can then be simplified and transferred or delegated. That delegation encourages engagement and problem ownership. It also releases management and specialist capacity to focus on longer term issues such as process optimisation, capital projects, growing the business or dealing with changes in legislation.
Delivering Better Capital Projects
Early Equipment Management is part of the Lean TPM toolbox that has a direct impact on capital project delivery. The goal is to deliver flawless operation from production day 1 and lowest life cycle costs to systematically increase capital project return on investment. This includes.....
A leading engine manufacturer resolved 9 equipment design weaknesses on current equipment to reduce investment spend by over £15m.
- Improved project added value
A waste disposal company improved new equipment designs to increase mean time between intervention by 30%.
A multinational innovation leader improved equipment design to increase capacity of new product line by 25% and material yield by 10%.
As any experienced designer will explain, the starting point for good design is to gain an insight into the day to day reality of the current user. Likewise, the most common causes of design weakness are
- limited understanding of design performance under operational conditions
- Lack of reliable design standards.
This is the domain of Early Equipment management principles and techniques which are used to set design standards and clarify operating methods to support the systematic evaluation design features. This leads to superior performance such as:
- less operator intervention including zero jams, one touch/no touch change overs;
- Predictable component life through the achievement of optimum component wear and removal of sources of accelerated wear/human error;
- less QA testing of product because of confidence that the process is in control.
This last point is hard to achieve if the science behind the manufacturing process is not fully understood. To use a military expression, time spent is reconnaissance is seldom wasted. A relatively small effort to analyse and experiment with existing processes can provide a gateway higher performance gains.
In addition to the financial gains, EEM benefits include:
- Better, slicker, simpler processes for project design, specification and management;
- Unlocking of operational tacit knowledge;
- Increased Innovation;
- Proactive ownership of strategic goals.
Implementing Lean Tpm Best Practice
Learn how to apply Total Productive Manufacturing principles and techniques to release the full potential of your people, procedures and work processes. Turn theory into practice using our structured Asset Improvement Plan workshop to apply lessons learn't to production assets live factory floor.
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