Preface

In today’s global economy the survival of companies depends on their ability to rapidly innovate and improve. As a result, an unceasing search is on for methods and processes that drive improvements in quality, costs, and productivity. In today’s fast-changing marketplace, slow, steady improvements in manufacturing operations will not guarantee profitability or survival. Companies must improve at a faster rate than their competition if they are to become or remain leaders in their industry.

North American products, practices, and methods were long considered the best in the world. This perception is changing as a result of new competition and economic pressures. Arrogance or self-assurance have devastated specific sectors of our manufacturing base. For example, the Japanese now own the consumer electronics industry. Changes in the automotive industry are well documented, and for the first time American-dominated industries, such as computers and aviation, are facing serious challenges by foreign competitors.

Other countries and cultures have proven they can compete successfully in the world marketplace with North American manufacturers. To confront this challenge, enlightened company leaders are benchmarking their organizations’ performance and improvement processes against domestic and international competitors. They are adopting and adapting “best-in-class” manufacturing practices and improvement processes. As part of these benchmarking efforts, total productive maintenance (TPM) has been identified as a “best-in-class” manufacturing improvement process.

What is total productive maintenance, and how can it help companies become more competitive in today’s worldwide economy? This book answers those questions from a North American perspective. Most other books on TPM have described TPM implementation in Japanese industries. Here we acknowledge the cultural differences between Japan and North America, and how they can affect TPM’s successful implementation. It examines how TPM can fit into an overall manufacturing strategy for a North American company.

This book provides plant and division manufacturing managers, business planners, and first-line supervisors an understanding of the complexity and comprehensiveness of the TPM process. While serving as a reference tool for strategic planning, it also meets educational needs of middle and upper management. It supplements works by Japanese authors with guidance and detail on how the TPM process relates to North American plants or facilities.

Since its introduction into North America in the late 1980s, total productive maintenance has been studied, piloted, and, in some cases, partially implemented. Levels of success have varied due to a number of factors. The primary limiter in North American implementation of TPM is the failure of the process to account for differences in how TPM is viewed. In North America, TPM is considered primarily a tactical approach for improving equipment reliability. In Japan, TPM is seen as a universal operating strategy much as North American companies now view total quality management (TQM).

Moreover, cultural differences between Japanese and North American workforces can alter implementation strategies. The basic difference between Japanese and North American workers is the focus of their loyalties. Japanese workers focus on the success of the group, for which they feel a tremendous sense of loyalty. A basic understanding or contract exists between management and workers. Employees agree to limit self-interest and put forth extraordinary efforts for the good of the company. In return, top Japanese companies often guarantee lifetime employment to full-time employees and watch over the well-being of the employees and their families. This social contract promotes teamwork and cooperation, and allows the company and workers to focus on long-term improvements such as TPM.

TPM is a complex, long-term process which must be “sold” to the workforce as a legitimate improvement methodology. A sales pitch is created more easily for a single, homogeneous market segment than for a large, diversified audience. Since Japanese workers usually have a similar ethnic and cultural background, their managers have an advantage in selling the concept. The North American workforce is much more diverse, complicating the selling of new ideas, concepts, or improvement methodologies.

American workers are more self-oriented than the Japanese. Their loyalty is internally focused, and not as automatically or readily transferred to the company. Typically, no contract or understanding exists between them and their employer other than what is negotiated through bargaining units. Most North American companies focus on short-term profitability or quarterly results. Long-term employment is not guaranteed; and, until recently, the concepts of employee empowerment, teamwork, and cooperation were unpracticed in the North American business environment.

Teamwork and cooperation are not unknown to the North American worker. Youths are introduced to these skills from the time they are old enough to hold a baseball bat, football, basketball, or hockey stick. Coaches continually reiterate the value of teamwork in improving competitiveness. Yet North American management has failed, until recently, to tap those competitive skills in the workplace.

For TPM to succeed in North America, both management and the workforce must address issues strategically, while operating in an environment of trust and cooperation. The improvement process must be recognized as benefiting both the company and the worker. The ultimate responsibility for success or failure of the TPM process rests more with management than the plant floor employee. North American workers and their unions can, and will, accept the TPM concepts of teamwork, cooperation, and empowerment, if management provides leadership, security of employment, and reasonable compensation. A major roadblock to successful TPM implementation in North America is the reluctance of managers to change their roles in the organization. For employees to assume power, managers must delegate authority. They must become coaches, facilitators, and teachers rather than autocrats, and information for decision making must be dispersed to work teams rather than being held in the hands of selected individuals.

TPM can help North American manufacturers confront the challenge of foreign competition. This exciting methodology enables companies to gain or maintain a competitive advantage. By taking the concepts of TPM and improving upon them, North America’s status as the world’s leading economic power can be reaffirmed. It begins, however, with strategic planning and culminates with successful implementation on the factory floor.