English Version / TPM Concepts and Literature Review / Concept / AM
Autonomous Maintenance Pillar (Jishu Hozen)
“Autonomous maintenance is the process by which equipment operators accept and share responsibility (with maintenance) for the performance and health of their equipment.” (Robinson and Ginder 1995 p. 57) The driving concept of Autonomous Maintenance (AM) is the creation of ‘expert equipment operators’ for the purpose of ‘protecting their own equipment’. (Shirose 1996) “Autonomousmaintenance is the cornerstone of TPM activities.” (Komatsu 1999 p. 2) The paradigm shift that AM addresses is a transition in the operator perception from ‘I run the equipment, Maintenance fixes it’, to ‘I own the performance of this equipment’.In this Autonomous Maintenance environment, “The greatest requirements foroperators are, first, to have the ability to ‘detect abnormalities’ with regard to quality or equipment, based on a feeling that ‘there is something wrong’.” (Shirose 1996 p.208) Autonomous Maintenance is closely linked with Focused Improvement in that both TPM pillars support equipment restoration and sustaining basic equipment conditions.
“Through autonomous activities – in which the operator is involved in daily inspection and cleaning of his or her equipment – companies will discover the most important asset in achieving continuous improvement – its people.”(Society_of_Manufacturing_Engineers 1995 p. 3) Autonomous Maintenance has twoaims, 1) to foster the development and knowledge of the equipment operators, and 2) to establish an orderly shop floor, where the operator may detect departure from optimal conditions easily. (Tajiri and Gotoh 1992) Autonomous Maintenance offers a significant departure from Taylor-ism (Taylor 1911; Taylor 1911) where operators are required to repeat simple structured work tasks with little understanding and knowledge about the equipment they run or the products they manufacture. “Autonomous Maintenance involves the participation of each and every operator, each maintaining his own equipment and conducting activities to keep it in the proper condition and running correctly. It is the most basic of the eight pillars of TPM. If autonomous maintenance activities are insufficient, the expected results will notmaterialize even if the other pillars of TPM are upheld.” (Komatsu 1999 p. 3)
Autonomous Maintenance empowers (and requires) equipment operators tobecome knowledgeable managers of their production activities, able to:
Detect signs of productivity losses.
Discover indications of abnormalities (fuguai).
Act on those discoveries.
JIPM describes the critical operator Autonomous Maintenance skills to be(Japan_Institute_of_Plant_Maintenance 1997):
Ability to discover abnormalities.
Ability to correct abnormalities and restore equipment functioning.
Ability to set optimal equipment conditions.
Ability to maintain optimal conditions.
To that end, JIPM and Productivity, Inc. defines the operator skill levels required to support Autonomous Maintenance (Japan_Institute_of_Plant_Maintenance 1997;Productivity 2000). (Figure 11)
The specific goals of Autonomous Maintenance include the following. (Suzuki 1994)
Prevent equipment deterioration through correct operation and dailyinspections.
Bring equipment to its ideal state through restoration and propermanagement.
Establish the basic conditions needed to keep equipment well maintained.Four significant elements of the Autonomous Maintenance effort arediscussed in further detail in this section:
[Original: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Concepts and Literature Review by Thomas R. Pomorski, Principal Consulting Engineer, Brooks Automation, Inc.]
English Version / TPM Concepts and Literature Review / Concept / AM 
