GA 434 | All About TPM with Ron Pereira

Hey everyone, this is Ron Perera and today we have a different type of episode that I'm really excited about. Today I'm going to be focused on one topic and one topic only. And that topic is TPM or Total Productive Maintenance. Now here at Gemba Academy, over this last year we have really gotten after our content development process and really made really dramatic improvements into our process. You know, over the years we've gotten decent at making videos. Obviously that's our core business, but we've really were intentional over this last 12 months on just really improving our flow and our planning processes and we've hired some more video editors and a dedicated project manager and we're just really, really proud of the content team and all that they've, they've accomplished. In fact, I was just looking and we've, we've produced like I think over 130 videos just over this last, over this last year. And those are all studio based videos. So very, very time consuming because you've got to storyboard them and write scripts and, and then obviously produce them and edit them and so on. So it's a lot of work and we've never done that much just in the history of our company. So TPM is a topic that. Well, we've had a TPM course for, for many years. It's a live workshop with our good friend Mike Robleski delivering it. And it's a. It' fantastic standalone course. But we wanted to go deeper and we wanted to produce, you know, studio level courses. And so we've begun that journey and we actually have two new courses available right now on the Gemba Academy library, namely Introduction to tpm, which as the name implies is just an introduction to Total Productive maintenance. What is it? Why should you care? What are the eight pillars and so forth? And then the second course that it's also available is Measuring TPM Effectiveness. And here we get into lots of different acronyms. So we talk about OEE and OPE and tep, mean time Between Failure, mttf, MTTT and so on. So really just talking about the complexities of really monitoring a world class TPM program. Many of us are familiar with OEE overall equipment effectiveness, but there's much more than just oee. So that's what that course is all about. And coming soon we've got a course on focused improvement and another one on autonomous maintenance, another one on planned maintenance and so forth. So lots more to come on tpm. But what I wanted to do today was play the audio of the overview videos for the Two newest courses that we released again, Introduction to TPM and New Measuring TPM Effectiveness. And now this is the audio. So if you're driving or you're on a treadmill, this will be perfect for you. Just listen to the audio. But if you are at a computer or you're at a spot where you can actually watch a video, we're going to link to the actual videos and they're free to access. So if you don't have a subscription to Gemba Academy, don't worry, you can still watch them. So feel free to just literally scroll down on your Show Notes page there on your on your podcast app or go to our Our Show Notes page, which is gembapodcast.com and you'll look for episode 434. We'll link them in there as well. But feel free to watch the videos. They're obviously very well produced. I'm a little biased, but I think our team of editors does a fantastic job. Now, after the audio for those two overview videos, I'm going to do something that we've never done before and that is actually repost an audio older episode. Well, back in episode 313, I interviewed a gentleman, Balaji Chandrasakar, who is really an expert in TPM and really lots of, lots of wisdom on tpm. And we talk about his journey with TPM at his company and how they went about implementing these same eight pillars. So we're going to basically, you know, reshare an episode that we did well over 100 episodes ago, so you might not even heard it. So, so yeah, so we'll have the audio for the two overview videos and then replaying episode 313, which is called the Eight Pillars of Total Productive Maintenance. Okay, and again, everything is going to be linked in the show notes gemba podcast.com look for episode 434. Or literally scroll down there on your podcast app and you'll see the links to the to the videos. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show.

Hi there and welcome. Certain types of businesses rely heavily on equipment to add value and to serve their customers. These include machine shops as well as continuous process industries such as breweries, bottlers, refineries, paper mills, pharmaceuticals, and so forth. When there are problems with production equipment, this leads to late deliveries, quality problems, financial losses, and low morale. Fortunately, there is a set of practices, methods and tools that empowers organizations to reduce equipment losses while maximizing the effectiveness of production systems. TPM, or Total Productive Maintenance, is a set of practices, methods and tools that enables organizations to do this. TPM was formalized by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance, or jipm, based on the experience of several companies in the application of maintenance best practices in the latter half of the 20th century. In the TPM philosophy, this is made more specific in the form of an ambitious goal of zero breakdowns of equipment. Just as it may not be possible to ever eliminate 100% of waste from every process, achieving a manufacturing operation that never has any equipment breakdowns is nearly impossible. However, the zero breakdown philosophy and the various TPM activities are designed to identify and eliminate the causes of breakdowns. It's also designed to help us develop a mindset that refuses to accept that equipment breakdowns are unavoidable. Many TPM activities are shop floor focused, but TPM aims to engage everyone in the organization in activities to minimize every type of equipment loss. These include, but are not limited to, breakdowns, accidents, defects, idling failures, energy and environmental pollution. TPM activities are designed to help us to detect, expose and eliminate all minor flaws in our equipment, establish and maintain basic equipment conditions, identify and set optimal operating conditions, and correct every deficiency identified, no matter how small. TPM is structured around a set of activities that span the entire organization. They are known as the eight TPM Pillars. They are focused improvement, autonomous maintenance, planned maintenance, education and training, early equipment Management, quality Maintenance, Office TPM, and Safety and environment management. There are many benefits of practicing tpm. First, there are the financial benefits of having more reliable equipment. It's common for organizations to improve their equipment capacity by 30%, 50% or even 100% through persistent loss reduction activities of TPM. The ability to produce more without adding more equipment cost translates directly to increased profit. Second, TPM places a strong focus on people development, specifically developing the knowledge, skill, autonomy and motivation of the equipment operators. The long term pursuit of TPM develops the zero loss mindset and awareness in every person in the organization. People drive TPM improvement and make it sustainable. The education, training and autonomy given to the machine operators make the human factor more predictable and reliable. A lean transformation cannot be sustained without this type of stability. While there are many specific continuous improvement methods for achieving stability related to labor quality, material variability, etc. TPM is the best suited approach for businesses that are heavily equipment dependent. Last but not least, TPM creates basic stability by making equipment reliable in terms of availability and production output. TPM reduces contamination and reverses deterioration, making equipment more reliable in terms of product quality. Organizations generally practice TPM in one of two ways. Some approach TPM as a comprehensive program, while others may choose to practice only a few TPM techniques. In either case, there is a logical step by step multi phase sequence to how TPM is rolled out. In the first approach, an organization pursues a comprehensive TPM program. This often means making a plan to establish the eight pillars one by one through their activities, their component practices and tools. If an organization has committed to the entire scope of TPM but still needs to formulate a plan, there is a 12 step process to implementing a TPM program. In process industries and continuous process operations, TPM is often rolled out as a complete manufacturing improvement system. These businesses rely mainly on equipment to add value in production and the benefits of TPM can be felt most directly in the second approach. An organization selectively adopts some but not all of the TPM pillars as part of their manufacturing management system. Often they start with the Focused Improvement and Autonomous Maintenance pillars because these address common production problems. TPM fits very well into an overall operational excellence program for discrete manufacturing organizations or any company that uses equipment that can break down. Many organizations find it very useful to adopt TPM practices selectively to improve overall equipment effectiveness, engage their workforce in safety and production efforts, or simply to strengthen their overall maintenance system. That wraps up our overview of TPM or Total Productive Maintenance. Hi there and welcome. In order to have a successful journey, it's essential to know where we started, where we want to go, and whether or not we are on the right track. This is true for tpm, which is also a journey to making significant and sustainable long term improvements across a wide range of human and technical capabilities. Fortunately, in TPM there is a specific set of metrics for measuring our progress. Some of these are common sense metrics that don't require formulas such as the time to respond to a machine breakdown or the number of people trained to perform basic daily cleaning and inspection tasks. Other metrics such as overall equipment effectiveness and mean time between failures do require making observations, collecting data and performing simple calculations. It's important to be familiar with TPM metrics as we will use them across all phases of the TPM transformation journey. In the middle and later phases, regular review of the TPM metrics helps us to know if our improvement actions are delivering sustainable results. This allows us to adjust course when needed as we pursue zero breakdowns, zero accidents, and zero defects. In the very first phase of tpm, organizations follow TPM implementation steps one through five. The first three steps involve education, commitment and creating a support structure. During these first three steps, we become familiar with these TPM metrics. Then in step four, we set TPM targets based on our business priorities. Once we understand how to measure the impact of tpm, we can then decide how we want our TPM program to contribute to our company's long term vision. Then these targets are broken down into shorter term objectives. In step five, we draft a TPM Master Plan based on an understanding of the business objectives and how the TPM metrics will help achieve them. It also requires aligning resources and setting priorities across the organization. Aligning TPM activities involves breaking the major goals down into sub goals and selecting the approach priorities and strategies required to meet those goals. When setting targets and deciding how we keep track of the effectiveness of our TPM efforts, it's important that we do this from three perspectives to get the full picture. These are business results, developing people's capabilities and intangibles we can further break down the business results achieved from TPM into four types. These are cost, cash, revenue, and capital expenditures. For example, focused improvement activity systematically reduces equipment losses. This reduces costs associated with breakdowns, quality defects, energy, materials, and labor costs as a result of equipment change. Over time reduction, it's possible to reduce production lot sizes, reduce work in process inventory, and free up cash. As we reduce various equipment losses and improve our overall equipment effectiveness, this creates additional capacity. The added capacity gives an organization the opportunity to capture new business and produce and deliver more goods, enabling the organization to increase revenue with the same asset base. In addition, it's common for TPM to reduce or delay the need for capital expenditure When a production line that is running at 40% OEE needs to double production, TPM provides an alternative to investing in a new production line. The systematic elimination of the six big losses can raise the OEE to 80% or more, effectively doubling the output with zero or minimal capital expenditure. In addition to improving equipment output and productivity, TPM is also very effective in contributing to cost reduction by improving safety, reducing pollution, raising quality levels, saving energy related to equipment use, and by streamlining administrative and support processes. These may be individually tracked as process metrics and linked with financial goals. TPM activities in the planned maintenance and autonomous maintenance pillars help to reduce a plant's maintenance costs such as spare parts and labor. The key in the education and planning phase is to understand the relationship between the TPM metrics, various TPM activities, how they address equipment losses, and how these impact the plant's financials. These two pillars are also good examples of the importance of having metrics for developing people. A major contributor to the success of TPM involves upgrading the systems and the skills and knowledge of maintenance people as well as the training and development of frontline equipment operators. These can be tracked through visual training matrices awarding certifications and by measuring the ratio of the types of maintenance work. For example, the ratio of planned maintenance to breakdown maintenance is a good metric indicating that an organization is developing capability to become less reactive to breakdowns by doing more to prevent and plan our maintenance work. We can measure the overall reliability of both equipment and the maintenance function by using metrics such as mean time between failures, time to respond, and mean time to repair. We can also link our metrics of maintenance capability back to financials such as the spending on spare parts, direct repair costs, or outsourced repair work cost. A major part of the success of TPM depends on engaging frontline equipment operators and supervisors. This begins with autonomous maintenance through activities such as daily cleaning, inspection and lubrication of their machines with the goal of keeping equipment in good running condition. Equipment operators participate in small group activities to find and fix problems in their equipment. The TPM education pillar raises the knowledge and skills of machine operators, enabling them to detect early warning signs of problems. Intangible benefits may include improved morale, engagement, teamwork, attitude and the atmosphere of the workplace. In some cases, these can be quantified through employee surveys, the number of improvement ideas generated, or reduced employee turnover. While intangible benefits are by definition more difficult to track, they are critical for strengthening the cultural foundation necessary for long term success. That concludes our review of how to measure the effectiveness of your TPM efforts.

Balaji, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm very well, Ron. Thanks for having me on. It's so exciting to be on.

Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, it's exciting to have you on. So where are you calling in from today?

I'm calling in from Melbourne, Australia. So it's one of the second tier cities in Australia. So I'm calling in from Melbourne.

Nice, nice. And it's, I understand, pretty early in the morning for you right there, right?

It is, it is, yeah. It's six in the morning. Yes. So it's nice and early for me here.

Okay, well, yeah, thanks for your flexibility there and appreciate you carving out some time, so.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Yeah. So Balaji, you know, we like to kind of begin our shows with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one that you want to share?

I do have a quote one and if you don't mind, it's a couple of lines from a poem called the Psalm of Life by H.W. longfellow that's okay. Yeah, yeah. It's called the Way it Goes is lives of great men all remind us to make our lives sublime and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. So it talks about the greatness of people and the greatness that they've achieved before us and how it should inspire us to achieve or at least even strive for greatness in our own lives while we have the time.

Here I like it. Very good, Very good. All right, well, Balaji, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, tell us how you got introduced to all this continuous improvement stuff and then. And tell us what you're up to these days.

Sure, sure. So, Ron, I did my undergrad engineering in India in instrumentation, and then I came over to Australia to do my master's in industrial engineering. And that kind of, you know, led me into the CI space. So after I finished my graduate, after I finished my master's, I graduated and I went into cement industry, making cement for a large cement manufacturer. And then I moved into the food and beverage industry where I've been for the last 12 to 14 years now. So I've been in the, the production management CI space, mostly in TPM capacity for the last 12, 14 years now.

Nice, nice. So TPM. So I was mentioning before we started recording that this is really interesting timing for us to be talking about TPM because Gemba Academy is preparing to create a pretty comprehensive series of videos on tpm. So really, really great timing and excited. We'll probably have some more folks on over the coming weeks and months to may explore different aspects of tbm. But maybe let's just begin, Balaji, with. I don't want, I never want to assume anything with, with our listeners and I know we have all different types of folks out there with different experiences and so, so maybe let's just begin with, with what is tpm? Total productive maintenance, like at a high level. How would you explain it to someone who, who might not be familiar with, with the concept? What would you say? What is tpm?

Yeah, so tpm, simply put, Ron, is about achieving maximum equipment effectiveness, which is about oee, which is your overall equipment effectiveness, while you simultaneously build shop flow capability and employee engagement. Simply put, it's a combination of plan performance and your shop flow capability or your people engagement.

Now, in your particular company, feel free to share as much or as little as you want to, or even the name of the company. If you want to, you can, but you don't have to tell us a little bit about your business and then how TPM is playing an important role and what you guys are trying to achieve as a business.

Right, so tpm. The way we implement tpm, Ron, is we help. So I work for a packaging company and we help our customers implement tpm. And what we basically do is we sell them packaging material and also we sell them consultancy services based on any technical issues, operational issues they might have with the assets that they have. So we share our expertise and we tell them how to implement TPM and how to improve operational capability on the shop floor as well.

Okay, so talk a little bit about, so high level, talked about what TPM is, but maybe talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you're seeing folks face when they're implementing, when they're first implementing tpm.

Sure, sure. You know, Ron, when I was a young engineer starting out in the world of tpm, I thought if something made sense logically, it would make sense logically, it would make sense to other people as well and it would be easily adopted. I think I'm a bit more wiser now and I think, you know, I realized very quickly that change is often hard on people, even for those leading it, and especially harder on those who have been impacted by it. So TPM is no different. TPM is quite a, a significant change in the way a business operates. And TPM is something that people think that TPM is something that they have to do over and about their jobs, but it's not usually the case. And tpm, like any big significant business change, has its, you know, has its challenges. It's not intuitive. Something like 5s can be intuitive, but TPM is not quite intuitive. It takes a coach to actually take you through the steps of TPM and to do it right. And again, it has significant lead times. And if you don't have the right support structure behind it from the management, it can quite quickly fizzle out as well. So it's quite important that you have the right support structure behind it. Having skilled people kind of leading the implementation so people know what the next steps are and how to actually get there. And if you have key influences in the business not believing in the process, that can be a significant challenge as well.

Yeah, so there's, so there's. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I'm going to just maybe make it a little educational. So there's, there's eight pillars of TPM as we talk about when we're teaching it. You know, things like autonomous maintenance, focused improvement plan, maintenance, quality management. So Forth. What, what is your experience with the eight pillars of tpm? Do you. Do you suggest starting with one of them? I mean, obviously you have to start somewhere. So, like, how do you, how do you approach the eight pillars of tpm?

Right. The way we approach it is. That's a great question, to be honest, Ron. The way we approach it is we usually start with the. The foundation pillars, what we call the foundation pillars, which is your focused improvement, autonomous maintenance, planned maintenance and education and training. And then, and then you. You focus on one which has the biggest impact for the business. Obviously, you have to understand what true north is for the business. So why are they implementing TPM in the first place? And it could be cost cutting, it could be, you know, to upskill the shop flow. And you obviously focus on the pillar that drives that metric, basically. And then once that's in place, and once the foundations are in place, then you can go with the other four pillars. So you start off with the first foundation pillars and then you go on with the other four. Sometimes even people start up with one pillar. For instance, if you think there's a lot of waste in the business, then you can start off with the focused improvement and you do a lot of Kaizen activity to actually stabilize the business and bring it back to a standard. And then you can start implementing autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance after that.

Yeah. So, you know, you were talking about the challenges and, you know, as far as change and I mean, really, whether it's TPM or Lean, right. Or something like that, I mean, it could be hard. Right. Change is difficult. Would you say that in your experience that tpm, the components, these eight pillars of tpm, present any unique challenges that are unique to something like tpm? That's not. Just has to do with this change in general. Have you. What do you think about that?

Yeah, so TPM is fairly unique. That it's not, it's. It's. I think the, the way TPM is structured, it's not, it's not cyclical, like, like Lean can be. It's, you know, they have a lot of Kaizen activity happening with Lean. There's small incremental improvements, but, but TPM is more linear. It starts off at a certain point and finishes off at a certain point. So it's quite linear. And people, you know, if you don't have a roadmap in front of you, it can be quite challenging. So I think that's, that's one thing that's quite different from. From Lean. And I think TPM is also the precursor for Lean, if you ask me. If you don't have the asset reliability and if you don't have the People capability early on, then I guess something like Lean would struggle with later on. So I think if you have the foundations in place just in time, and Lean can easily be added on. On top of it.

Yeah. Now, would you guys say that you practice just traditional Lean, you know, running around, doing Kaizen events or, you know, practicing, you know, different Lean tools, value stream mapping and so forth, or would you say you don't? I'm just curious.

We do, we do, but not as much as the TPM tools. The TPM tools are very similar. So you have the, the Kaizen activity and. And we follow the make structure or the DME IC structure for problem solving and we also have the Kaizen activity, which is more like a go see where you go on the shop floor and actually start looking at what opportunities exist and how do you actually tackle them in a small but sustainable way so people can actually take them on board and actually run with them. So I think the Lean tools are. I mean, the tools are the tools. It's a problem that's more pertinent and how you actually apply the tools for the problem.

Yeah, well, it's interesting, I know in different companies TPM is critical, like food manufacturing or something like that. The machine breaks, the whole business stops. Right?

Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. It's quite expensive as well.

Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. It is funny. It's like some Lean people. TPM is part of Lean. Well, or is Lean part of tpm? You know. Right, so there's a philosophy.

Exactly. The philosophies are, I think it's all about building engagement and building capability whilst you improve your plan performance. It's all about meeting market demand. That's pretty much the end result that everyone's aspiring for.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. We teased about the eight pillars. Maybe I'll, you know, maybe we should run through them just at a high level, just in case folks aren't familiar. So I don't know if there's a correct order or not, but the order.

That I don't think there is.

Yeah, like the order that I. That I've. I don't know, for whatever reason, is autonomous maintenance. I've always talked about first. What, what is autonomous maintenance? Just elevator pitch, maybe for each one of these.

Sure. So autonomous maintenance is about, you know, restoring the machine back to basic condition. So it's about how do you bring it back to a standard condition where it Basically performs at what it's meant to be. Basically performs at how it's meant to perform at.

Yeah. And giving people autonomy. Right. To do maintenance on a regular basis.

Correct? Yeah. And it's all about focus and. Sorry, this is focused on the operator or the other person running the, the equipment. Yeah, it's about. And one of the key roles for an operator, Ron, if you ask me, is to respond to deviation. And autonomous maintenance actually teaches them how to respond to any deviation in the process if the machine's in operating condition on standard condition.

Okay, Focused improvement number two. What is that? You mentioned it already A little bit.

Yeah, yeah, sure. So focused improvement is about running Kaizen activities. So it could be as small as doing a go see or it could be as big as running a Six Sigma project. And it's about having a specific outcome that you're looking for for the business and then actually forming a small cross functional team and then going after it. So it's about, it's about creating the space for autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance where you can bring, you can create space and you can create that opening for autonomous maintenance and plant maintenance to actually come in.

Okay. And planned maintenance that you just hinted at.

Yeah, Planned maintenance is obviously like it says, maintenance. It's about having the reliability from a maintenance perspective on the machine. So it's about having the right structures in PMs, you know, having preventative maintenance happening. So if there are any issues that are raised with the machine while you're tagging and restoring the machine back to basic condition, planned maintenance can come in and actually assist the operators and the, the technician to restore it back to basic condition again.

Okay. Another pillar is quality management. So what is quality managed from a TPM perspective as compared to, say, you know, defect reduction in an assembly line?

Sure. The quality management is about quality assurance. So it's about having quality at the source and not passing quality down the line. So it's identifying which part of the process actually creates the defect and then fixing the process so the defect doesn't happen in the first place. So. And again it goes back to the principles of autonomous maintenance. So restoring the machine back to basic condition and understanding the machine well enough so you understand where the quality defects are coming from and then how do you actually stop it from happening in the first place?

This next one I've heard kind of described a few different ways, but something like early equipment management, is that what you would say?

Yes, equipment management. Early equipment management is about vertical startups for any new asset that you. That you normally put in. So if you, if you have a new capital expense that for the business and you, you're buying a new machine or a new plant or whatever. It's about how quickly can you have a vertical startup after the lines gone live basically. And it's about having the right principles of project management in place so you, and you build the foundations of TPM before the line basically goes live. So it's, how do you actually make it easy to clean, easy to, to lubricate, easy to inspect, easy to operate and having those principles thought of and implemented beforehand before the machine goes into operation?

Yeah, education and training maybe self explanatory.

I guess maybe it is, it is and I think it's, it's one of the key pillars of TPM because it talks about, you know, building capability across all levels of the business starting with management all the way down to the shop floor. So it's, it's about how do you educate yourself and how do you upskill yourself in the process of tpm.

Now there's somebody that right now listening, if they've listened this far, good on you. If you're working, maybe an office or you don't have big machines running as part of your daily work, but there is a pillar for administrative and office tpm. So talk a little bit about that.

Sure, sure. So office office pillar is probably the last one of the last pillars that actually gets on. Not for any reason I guess in particular, but it's just one of those, it's just one of those, those quirks of TPM offices is about administrative losses and how do you actually improve your administrative processes in, in the business. So if you have any losses stemming from, from the administration part of the business like you know, order taking or delivery, then this is obviously that's, this is one of the pillars that actually looks into that and it also talks about efficiency and effectiveness in the office environment.

And then last but definitely not least, safety, health and environmental conditions.

Yep. So one of the key pillars that goes hand in hand with any other pillar is about how do you improve the workplace health and safety. So ensuring that when you do something it's not hurting anyone, it's not hurting the machine, it's not hurting the plant or it's not hurting the person operating it. And most importantly not the food and beverage industry, it's not hurting the consumer either. So it's about, you know, how do you ensure that safety and quality is built into, into every. Sorry. Safety and health is built into every part of the process that you're looking at.

Yeah, yeah. Now you mentioned earlier oee, at least in the west, you know, it seems to be the, one of the key metrics for TPM engagement. Talk a little bit about, about OEE and you know the three factors that go into, into formalizing that metric.

Sure, sure. So OE stands for overall equipment effectiveness and it's got three components that go into it. The first one is availability. So it's quite self explanatory. If the machines, let's say the machines plan to run for a certain number of hours, does it run for those number of hours? It's basically saying how much is the machine available to actually produce something? And then you have the next one is productivity. It talks about how well does the plant run, how well does the machine run while it's in production. So it talks about breakdowns, your small stops, your speed losses, any other losses that stem from while the machine is in the production phase. And last you have the quality, which is about quality defects and quality rejects and any sampling issues that you might have in the process. So OEE is basically a product of the number of hours the machine's running for and how well it runs in the productivity phase and how many quality and how good your quality is while you're actually in production phase.

Yeah, so you have availability and then you call it productivity. Sometimes I've heard it called performance, same thing. And then quality. So you multiply those three, three numbers together and you get your OEE right correct. You know, back in my corporate world days, you know, I worked at a company and we were definitely trying to monitor and improve oe. And I tell you one of the biggest challenges that we face, and this was, you know, more than 10 years ago. So I know things have come a long way since then, but you know, having operators, maybe they're running a CNC machine or something like that and you know, anytime the machine stopped or whatever it might be, you know, we started with a piece of paper said just write down, you know, what the why used, why it stopped or why you had to stop and, and try to monitor it. And then we eventually spent some money on some fancy software and there are some of these big fancy touch screens next to the machine where they are tagging their various types of downtime. What has been your experience with, with OEE and tracking it at an operator level?

Ron, that's a great question. I think if you ask me, Ron, the, the, the maturity of any TPM implementation, for that matter, any implementation is the maturity of the problem Solving in the business. And one of the key drivers for problem solving is data. You know, if you have the right data going into your problem solving activities, then the quality of your problem solving just goes up exponentially. And like you say, you know, in most businesses, people still use the paper and pen, but there's nothing wrong with that. You still engage with the process. You actually record your downtime or defects or whatever it might be, or quality samples or whatever it might be. You have different ways of recording data. And like you said, things have come a long way as well. But the fourth industrial revolution upon us, there's so many digital dashboards out there. You know, all you have to do is plug into the PLC of the machine and you have this automated software that actually gives you trends and dashboards and talks about how long the machine's been down for, what are the key defects coming from it, and puts it out in a nice visual format that anybody from the shop floor can access from top management all the way down to the operator. Like I said earlier, it's about responding to deviations. And these digital tools these days can actually assist in quicker response to the deviation that comes from the process.

So what would you say if you were walking into an organization practicing tpm? How would you go about measuring what you would consider their maturity with tpm, what would you be looking for?

So I'd be looking for the quality of the problem solving. I think that's one of the key things that I usually look for. So obviously have the, the pillar boards and the usual metrics that go with tpm. But I think one of the key drivers that I think drives any business forward is how many problems do you find and how many problems do you actually fix and how well do you fix them? And this can easily be done. Sometimes a simple conversation gets you going in that direction. Sometimes it could be looking at the go see sheet and seeing a typical A3 sheet or A5Y sheet or whatever you call it, and on how people actually have done problem solving, on the flow and what kind of problems have they been tackling as well. So I think that will be one of the key metrics to understand the maturity of the business in terms of its CI implementation.

Yeah, yeah, Great job. So what do you suggest, you know, against eventually Gamble Academy be here to support everybody with some training. But you know, in all seriousness, if someone wants to learn more about tpm, is there any like. So maybe some books or some resources, some conferences or something like that you would suggest folks look into?

Sure. I mean One of the key industries, I think GIPM is one of the older enterprises that actually supports the implementation of tpm and they've done a number of books, Ron, that people usually refer to. They have these TPM textbooks and they're quite, you know, they're quite detailed, quite elaborate. So I would recommend anyone starting off at TPM to refer to one of those books. But again, like I said, if you have a good coach in tpm.

Yeah.

That usually has. Has a lot of merit.

Yeah, for sure.

In the implementation.

Yeah, we will. What I'll do is I'll get. We'll consolidate. Maybe we'll work together. Balaji and get a list of books and we'll link to them in the. In the show notes for this episode so folks can. And go and do some learning on that way. The show notes for this episode will be gembapodcast.com this is 313 episode 313 so we'll link to all those. Balaji. So I know it's now 6:30, so it's time for breakfast, I guess for you, Balaji.

Almost. Yeah.

So maybe a quick nap, you know, if you got up a little early. But thank you again for, for coming on. It's been really fun chatting with you. I sure appreciate you sharing your valuable time with us. So maybe let's finish up.

My pleasure.

Yeah, let's finish up. Maybe with some final words of wisdom that you have for folks who are on the TPM journey or who are thinking of beginning it. Some parting thoughts?

Yeah, sure. I mean, if you. I think firstly congratulate yourself if you've embarked on the journey of TPM or any CI implementation for that matter. And one of the key, I think, thoughts that I would probably impart on the audience is that progress is not inevitable. Change is not always a precursor for progress. It's actually driven by the choices we make. So if you make the right choices and if you build the right capability and right engagement in the shop floor and across the different levels of management, then progress happens. But it doesn't not an automatic change. Progress is not always happening. If you just do a CI implementation, you have to make the right choices while you're actually implementing it to actually have the right business outcome you're looking for.

Yeah, wonderfully said. All right, Balaji, what's the best way for folks to connect with you directly?

So I'm on LinkedIn. I think it's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me, Ron. So it's my first name and my last name, so Balaji Chandrasekhar and I'm on LinkedIn and. Yeah, yeah, so that's probably the best way to get in touch with me.

Right. And we'll, we'll link to that as well in the Show Notes Again, Gimbapodcast.com Episode 313 is this episode. So Balachi, thank you again for coming on and really enjoyed it. Keep up the great work and maybe we'll have you on down the road. If we're doing some more deep, deeper dives into tpm, it maybe we'll take a pillar at a time, you know, and maybe go through the intricacies of that individual pillar. That might be a fun, fun way to spend some time.

Sounds really exciting. Thank you very much, Ron. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure talking to you.

All right, take care.

You too. Thanks, Ron.

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