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History of TPM

The earliest roots of TPM trace back to the concept of Productive Maintenance (PM) that originated in the United States in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. American Productive Maintenance was characterized by development of scheduled Preventive Maintenance techniques to improve the reliability and longevity of manufacturing production equipment.* “What we now refer to as TPM is, in fact, American-style productive maintenance modified and enhanced to fit the Japanese industrial environment.” (Nakajima 1984) Twenty Japanese companies formed a PM research group in 1953 and in 1962 sent a research mission to the United States to observe American Productive Maintenance. This effort further led to the creation of the Japanese Institute of Plant Engineers (JIPE), the predecessor of JIPM in 1969. (Ireland and Dale 2001) Figure 1 provides an overview of the early milestones as TPM developed in Japan. (Nakajima 1984)

Figure 1 - TPM Development in Japan

The first use of the term Total Productive Maintenance was in the Japanese automotive component manufacturer Nippondenso in 1961, where the company improvement theme was ‘Productive Maintenance with Total Employee Participation’. (Robinson and Ginder 1995) Nippondenso would later become the first company to win the JIPM PM prize for TPM implementation. Early TPM implementation in Japan was primarily within the automotive industry, particularly within Toyota and their associated component suppliers. (Robinson and Ginder 1995) Nissan and Mazda soon followed Toyota in implementing TPM in, at least, some oftheir manufacturing sites. Seiichi Nakajima was one of the earliest proponents of this effort and soon became known as the Father of TPM for his work with JIPE and JIPM. The earliest Japanese TPM implementations met with limited success and only a small number of companies initiated the effort. (Tajiri and Gotoh 1992) In the early1970’s, Japan faced a worsening economic climate and adoption of TPM began to accelerate as a means to improve manufacturing productivity. (Ireland and Dale 2001) Structured and phased implementation processes such as those developed by Nakajima (Nakajima 1984; Nakajima 1989) provided standardized and repeatable methodology for TPM.

TPM spread to America and the Western world in the 1980’s and 1990’s ascompanies jumped on the quality bandwagon with programs such as Total Quality Management (TQM). (Ireland and Dale 2001) Early Western TPM adopters included Dupont, Exxon, Kodak, Alcoa, AT&T, Ford, Hewlett-Packard, and Proctor and Gamble. (Suzuki 1994) A number of authors document the successful growth of TPM in Western manufacturing enterprises. (Nakajima 1988; Nakajima 1989;Hartmann 1992; Sekine and Arai 1992; Willmott 1994) Since the mid-1980’s case studies extolling the benefits of TPM implementation proliferated through the efforts of Productivity, Inc. in their newsletter The TPM Report (McCloud 1998;Productivity 1998; Mika 1999) and their annual TPM Conference and Exposition [Adams, 2000 #229; Crow, 1996 #252; Custer, 1999 #238; Gardner, 2000 #231;Howren, 1999 #244; Leflar, 1999 #237]. Asten, Inc. recognized the importance of equipment performance in achieving overall company production goals andintroduced TPM in 1989 as part of their effort to win the Malcolm Baldridge Award.“At many companies where maintenance is viewed as an operational expense to beminimized and not as an investment in increased process reliability, the maintenance practices decrease their competitiveness by reducing throughput, increasing inventory, and leading to poor due-date performance.” (Patterson, Fredendall et al.1996 p. 32) The U.S. semiconductor industry recognized the high value potential ofTPM implementation and organized an industry-wide effort to establish share TPM learning and establish standardized TPM implementation and management practicesand methodologies. SEMATECH, a consortium of major U.S. semiconductor manufacturers** chartered a TPM Steering Committee in the mid 1990’s to develop aroadmap for TPM implementation (SEMATECH-International 1998) and an auditingprocess for TPM programs (SEMATECH-International 1996). The SEMATECHTPM Steering Committee also hosted a series of workshops in which TPM practitioners shared learning’s related to the implementation and execution of their TPM programs. (Bahrani 1995; Ames 1996; Pomorski 1996; Studebaker 1996)

By the late 1990’s, TPM was well entrenched as a continuous improvement methodology across a wide range of industries. To illustrate, look at the mix of enterprises that have been awarded the TPM Prize by JIPM, Figure 2, as of 1996.(Shirose 1996)

Figure 2 - TPM Awards by Industry Type

[Original: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Concepts and Literature Review by Thomas R. Pomorski, Principal Consulting Engineer, Brooks Automation, Inc.]

* Preventive Maintenance is characterized by routine maintenance activity such as inspection, adjustment, or component replacement performed on a scheduled basis before an equipment failure occurs. Reliability Engineering methodology plays a large role in analyzing equipment failure modes and frequency to determine optimal PM scheduling. This paper will not include an in-depth discussion of Reliability Engineering practices and methods.

** International SEMATECH, located in Austin, TX, is a consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers that engage in cooperative, pre-competitive efforts to improve semiconductor manufacturing technology. Originally formed in 1987 as SEMATECH in partnership with the U.S. government to help restore American leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, the consortium expanded its scope of operations to include non-U.S. membership in 2000 when it evolved into International SEMATECH. International_SEMATECH (2003). International SEMATECH web page, International SEMATECH.