The Benefits and Shortcomings of Pursuing JIPM TPM Awards

The JIPM TPM Award recognizes excellence in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), emphasizing structured pillars, key metrics, lean tools, and benefits including growth and cost reduction.  It provides a global recognition system which fosters a strong improvement cultures in organizations.

Overview of JIPM TPM Award:

• The JIPM TPM Awards recognize excellence in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).  The JIPM TPM Awards signify a global recognition of TPM excellence.
• INX International's plant in Kansas received the TPM Excellence Award in 2010. Their presentation aims to shed light on TPM and the JIPM Awards, often unfamiliar to many in the US.

History and Origin of TPM:

• TPM's roots trace back to American principles from the 1920s.
• Its popularity surged in Japan after World War II, influenced by Deming, Shewhart, Juran, and Feigenbaum.
• The Japan Management Association (JMA) introduced the PM award in 1964, which later became the TPM award in 1971.

Components and Structure of TPM:

• TPM is a structured approach encompassing various aspects of factory management.  They emphasize that TPM is more than just a tool for lean manufacturing but rather a comprehensive management approach.
• It involves informative checklists, audits, and reviews to foster continuous improvement. TPM emphasizes loss elimination and creating a strong improvement culture within organizations
• The eight pillars of TPM include 5S, Autonomous Maintenance, Planned Maintenance, Quality Maintenance, Early Management, Safety & Environment, Admin & Support, and Education & Training. 
• Autonomous Maintenance involves empowering operators to maintain and improve equipment.
• Planned Maintenance aims to prevent breakdowns and increase reliability.
• Quality Maintenance focuses on eliminating the need for quality control by ensuring high product quality
• Early Management is divided into Early Product Management and Early Equipment Management.

Key Metrics and Tools of TPM:

• OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is a key metric in TPM.
• TPM utilizes various lean tools such as 5S, Pareto charts, root cause analysis, and standard work.

TPM Award Process and Benefits:

• The TPM award process integrates targets, metrics, and key management indicators.
• JIPM provides an "Application Outline" that spells out checklists that include all the requirements to apply for an award at different levels.  Checklists are very comprehensive and prescriptive.
• INX International received recognition and support from its parent company after receiving the TPM Excellence Award.
• The implementation of TPM led to growth, cost reduction, and improved safety and environmental compliance.
• Companies can continue to hold kaizen showcases and TPM health checks to sustain TPM practices.
• The presentation concludes with resources for further exploration, including the JIPM website.

TPM Award Process Shortcomings:

• The presentation mentioned that to receive awards you have to meet checklist-type requirements laid out in JIPM's "Application Outline".  This leads a plant to focus their resources in actions to meet checklist requirements, often disregarding what performance improvements are a priority.   This "checklist" mentality is dangerous for that reason, as the plant can be working on the wrong things, just to score better on a JIPM audit.
• JIPM awards are at a plant level, not at a company level.  This has led to the huge misconception that TPM is a management system at a plant level.  The presentation mentioned how INX was successful at tying company resources as company pillar owners, support or sponsors, tied to the company's organizational structure.  Other companies fail at doing this.  
• The JIPM awards haven't evolved over time.  The same checklists and structure are being used since the 1990's.  This becomes a problem because new business trends such as Digital Transformation, Daily Management Systems, Lean Material Flow, etc.. are ignored.  This leads companies to shy away from TPM as they see it as an outdated system, especially if meant to be a management system. 
• There is no motivation for the JIPM awards to evolve, because they want to remain consistent and congruent with the companies that have already adopted it.  

Course Forward:

• TPM is still a successful system that can be used effectively as an Operating System.   Companies should look to evolve it, instead of blindly pursuing an award system that hasn't evolved over time.  Attempts at evolving the TPM system include World Class Manufacturing (WCM).  WCM is an evolution of TPM which attempts to modernize TPM and add other managerial pillars and technical pillars which were a gap in TPM.  However, it also shares a similar checklist/auditing mentality shortcoming. 
• Consider sharing with others to understand why TPM hasn't taken over the world.  
• And if you'd like to learn more about TPM or WCM, please visit our blog sections...
  • TPM:  https://www.beltcourse.com/blog?tag=total+productive+maintenance
  • WCM:  Note there will be a lot of overlapping articles, but that will help you also see the similarities and differences between TPM and WCM.   https://www.beltcourse.com/blog?tag=total+productive+maintenance

Source: (best YouTube Video on the JIPM TPM Awards)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_WoHnKnMo&t=1253s