Every company needs to gain and maintain competitiveness to survive.
Many seek to achieve this goal through systems that support their improvement efforts.
Some try to do so by making profound changes in their principles and practices.
Very few understand that TPM is more than a maintenance or “plant” system; that it is in fact a Comprehensive Management System, capable of guaranteeing the desired competitiveness results, if implemented seriously.
What is TPM and what does it mean to seriously implement it?
TPM is a critical look at the organization itself that exposes existing losses, across all sectors of the company, and transforms them into opportunities to recover money.
Involve all departments (not just Production) and all staff in a single project: zero losses.
It's true, there are huge losses in the productive areas, but also in the administrative areas. They are even greater, as the professor points out. Suzuki.
There are huge losses in the use of equipment and facilities, but also in administrative and management processes.
Uncovering these losses and eliminating them one by one is the purpose of TPM, understood not so much as Total Productive Maintenance, but rather as Total Organizational Performance Management or, to maintain the acronym TPM, Total Performance Management.
Learn or unlearn first?
As is usually the case in any transformation process, learning and unlearning are required.
The problem is that it's often harder to abandon certain practices and mental models than to learn new tools and techniques. That's why many people only take a superficial look. In fact, they ask us: teach me this or that tool. And we must insist that the tool is just that, a means, not an end. We must first change our mindset. That is, unlearn obsolete models that then allow for learning. Otherwise, our learning will be blocked by pre-existing paradigms.
The ability to learn will be so conditioned by old models that the success of the new will be a direct function of the ability to let go of the old. I mean, the more we are able to unlearn the obsolete, the more open we will be to receiving the new.
As the Scripture says:
“No one uses a piece of unshrunk cloth to patch an old garment, because the piece pulled on the garment, and the tear becomes bigger. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins, because it will burst the wineskins, and neither the wine nor the wineskins will be good for anything. New wine needs new wineskins!” (Mk 2: 21-22)
What does it mean to implement it correctly?
In short, it involves making the right decisions at the right time, with the best interests of the organization in mind, not just defending one's share of power.
It requires putting the focus on learning to identify each of the losses. It means recognizing that the ability to identify them is already within ourselves. In our ability to read and interpret critically our organizational practices.
It requires developing the eight nuclear activities of the TPM, the so-called 8 Pillars So that, with each of its leaders assuming responsibility for its implementation, the company can advance step by step in identifying and combating its losses.
Why did I start by saying that TPM is something else?
Because most companies begin their continuous improvement journey enthusiastically, however, when they face the moment of truth—one that demands making difficult decisions and making the changes required for the process to be successful—the status quo ends up prevailing. And from there to turning TPM into a mere standalone maintenance checklist, there are only a few steps. That's not TPM; that's a fake.
What are those difficult decisions?
Typically, these are issues related to the use of power and empowerment. These are not usually technical problems, but human problems, which are resolved through political decision-making, not through continuous improvement tools.
I claim that TPM is something else because the Japanese showed us many years ago that Every company has another hidden one that does not produce. Implementing TPM correctly requires paying the emotional price of taking charge of that hidden factory After the losses, identify and eliminate them one by one, even if it means inconvenience or discomfort.
Thus, competitiveness will cease to be a mere dream, or worse yet, the responsibility of an outsider (a government policy, for example), and will become an inherent characteristic of the organization. Something that depends on each of us, beyond the vagaries of the market.
* Raúl A. Perez-Verzini is a certified TPM instructor from the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JPIM) with the certification number 723. He holds a Master's degree in Organizational Development and Behavior from the Diego Portales University in Chile and a degree in Civil Engineering from the Catholic University of Córdoba. He has been a consultant in Organizational Change and Continuous Improvement Programs with an emphasis on TPM for over 20 years.
