Journal Preparation

An Integrated Approach to TPM and Six Sigma Development Programs



Abstract
A fundamental component of world-class manufacturing is that of the total productive maintenance (TPM), which has been recognized as one of the significant operation strategy to regain the production losses due to equipment inefficiency. TPM is the methodology that aims to increase both availability of the existing equipment hence reducing the need for the further capital investment. The aim of the paper is to study the implementation of the integreted approach to TPM and Six Sigma program in an Indonesian industrial manufacturing industry. Through a case study of implementing TPM in an manufacturing industry, the practical aspects within and beyond basic TPM theory, difficulties in the adoption of TPM and Problems encountered during implementation are discuss. Using a See through, JH-Check sheet, PM-Check sheet, One Point Lessons, empirical and comprehensive approach toward the methodology results proper implementation of TPM. After implementation of TPM on model machine, both direct and indirect benefits are shown to be obtained for equipment and employees respectively.



1.      Introduction
A typical manufacturing plant has hundred, even thousand of equipment components that can create problems in a myriad of ways. Plant managers and production managers oftentimes don’t understand the reasons behind these chronic problems and thus miss one of the biggest strategic opportunities available to make improvements in capacity, throughput and profits. Chronic problems are far too common in most manufacturing plants, down-time, rejects, waste, production delays are rampant in most plants. Effective capacity is lost (Increasing capital investment), costs are increased (at a loss of competitiveness) and profits are reduced (at a loss of business viability).
Organizations look for ways to improve their production and management processes in order to remain competitive in the market. This calls for ways to reduce production cost, enhance productivity and improve product quality. Therefore, organizations must utilize all the available resources efficiently and effectively in order to cater their customers with high quality products at a low price.
To respond to this major issue in manufacturing systems, Japanese companies have implemented and developed the concept of total productive maintenance (TPM). It creates a cooperative relationship between all organizational activities towards continuous improvement. Similarly, manufacturing efficiency is controlled by the extent of its ability to follow procedures and implement them [1-2]. Initially, TPM links the lean attitude to reduce the waste and increasing productivity of machine and equipments [3]. Therefore, the employment of complementary approach can help organizations to minimize breakdowns. On the other hand, Six-Sigma similar to TPM improves productivity and effectiveness [4]. These two approaches formalize the basic activities in organizations to achieve performance benefits.
Every strategy has potential advantages and each one can generate substantial performance improvement. Indeed, the different strategies overlap each other because they have some weaknesses and strengths. An integrated model usually starts from a baseline and develops from there onwards. This paper provides a detailed explanation about lean maintenance based on TPM and Six Sigma conceptual integrated model. In the proposed model, critical success factors are the baseline.
TPM emphasizes on sharing responsibilities among employees and overall equipment effectiveness, while, Six-Sigma is an approach to reach continuous improvement. TPM and Six Sigma are the push for quality in processes, customer requirements and teamwork activities. They find opportunities and complement the maintainable continuous improvement.

2.    A Review of TPM and Six-Sigma

2.1.Objectives of TPM
The purpose of TPM is to generate a strong relationship between maintenance employees and other employees in organizations in order to keep machines and equipments running and also to optimize the organizational overall performance [5]. TPM is a people oriented strategy that concentrates on improving equipment effectiveness and removing breakdowns [6]. Moreover, TPM can eliminate the wastes that create through the six major losses in companies. Failures embrace the losses such as breakdown, set up, stoppage, decreased speed, defects and reworks and start up.

2.2.Objective of Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a managerial approach to improve the processes of products and services in order to increase continuous improvement and decrease defects in organizations [7]. The aim of improvement process is to remove the origin reasons of performance defects in processes that previously are present in the organizations [8].



2.1.Critical Success Factors in TPM and Six Sigma
The role of top management is one of the most important factors in TPM implementation. Management commitment and support are necessary for fundamental improvement in organizations [9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15].
Both the Six Sigma and TPM program and any initiative cannot endure to succeed without commitment and support of top management. In fact, every program in organizations such as designing, programming, team forming, responsibility contributing, training should support by senior executives. Employee involvement as another key factor makes people to feel an important section of the plan. Moreover, total number of people need to train for achieving the main target of executive approach. On the other hand, a good organizational structure and manufacturing strategy are two management tools that track increasing results of completed programs. Teamwork plan is next key factor that leads organizations to propagate information feedback for gaining best results. More important, during the overall employee contribution, it is significant any employee adopts the philosophy of methods and be responsible for conducting the defined activities.
TPM and Six Sigma focus on common identification and elimination inefficient procedure and performance cycle time and quality defects in manufacturing and processes. TPM is conducted by all people through team-working activities. All trained employees acquire the skill and knowledge relevant the maintenance program within the small group functions. In this paper, the authors seek to clarify the relationship of TPM and Six Sigma that are simultaneously implemented within manufacturing systems.
Figure 1 shows the aspects of integrated model to obtain continuous improvement in manufacturing environments. Whereas, Six Sigma and TPM are two strong philosophies that influence on overall organizational practices, this research considers the common critical success factors of two approaches so that achieving productivity, employee, process and products development and also continuous improvement.


Figure 1: Integrated Maintenance Model through TPM and Six Sigma Implementation


Figure 1 has shown TPM and Six Sigma inside a single conceptual model. The identified common critical factors include management commitment, employee involvement, education and training, organization structure, manufacturing strategy, responsibility and teamwork. It is structured in five phases in order to reach continuous improvement. In the lean steps of model, the structure of maintenance investigates and evaluates in order to design main contributing factors. In define phase, significance of equipment and machine situation are recognized. Based on risk failures, the problem, its scope and process capacity are defined. It is clear that all critical factors in Figure 1 impact directly on definition and recognition of real problem in maintenance system towards higher quality. In measure phase, gathering data is conducted to analyze for next step. Here, it is also highlighted the role of each identified critical factors to achieve the real data and information regarding optimization of maintenance system. Besides, to create improvement in organizations, it is necessary to report all occurrences and events for obtaining the meaningful improvement.
Therefore, investigating the changes in performance, demonstrating the solution effectiveness and evaluating the results can help to improve the process outcomes. Finally, if the organizational process is improved, it is significant that the generated improvement is maintained. Meanwhile, control phase shifts on performance to remove all practices that create defects in manufacturing systems. However, the stages of Six Sigma (DMAIC) approach, with TPM, are effective for solving the diverse issues in organizations.

2.1.Overview of line production process
Typical fluorescent lamps consist of a long glass tube that seals the inner components from atmosphere. These inner components include two electrodes that emit a flow of electrons; mercury vapor, which is the source of ultraviolet radiation; argon gas, which helps in starting the lamp, and of course fluorescent power coating on the inner surface of the tube.


Figure 2: Illustration of light production in general fluorescent lamp [19].