Preventive maintenance and TPM — preventing breakdowns before they happen
From correcting errors to preventing them: TPM makes maintenance the whole team's task
One of the clearest requirements in the regulation for industrial operator education is that you can monitor and operate systems and carry out preventive maintenance and that you can later in the education combine TPM tools in the maintenance function for resource optimisation. TPM — Total Productive Maintenance — is an entire philosophy for how maintenance is approached and it fundamentally changes who is responsible for keeping the system running.
§What is TPM?
TPM was developed in Japan and got its name in 1971 as maintenance philosophy developed by Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance based on best practice from large Japanese companies in 1960s. Basic idea is simple but break with old thinking: maintenance is not just technician's task — it is whole team's shared responsibility from operator at buttons to specialist with toolkit. Where common maintenance often only reacts when something breaks TPM works proactively to prevent problems before they even arise
§The eight pillars of TPM
- 01Autonomous Maintenance — the Operator Performs Daily Cleaning, Lubrication and Simple Inspection
- 02Planned maintenance — fixed, predetermined inspections and replacements by specialists
- 03Equipment improvement (Kaizen) — continuous small improvements of the machine itself
- 04Quality control in maintenance — connection between facility condition and product quality
- 05Education and training — everyone on the team knows the system and their part of the responsibility
- 06Safety and work environment — maintenance that does not compromise on safety
- 07TPM in administration — same systematics spread to planning and documentation
- 08Early fault detection and system design — experience is used to improve the next generation of systems
§Autonomous Maintenance — the Operator's Own Part
The column you touch the most in daily life is autonomous maintenance: you clean, lubricate, re-tighten and make simple adjustments yourself instead of waiting for a specialist technician for every little thing. It frees up the technician's time for complex tasks but just as importantly it gives you a feel for how the system normally sounds, smells and behaves — so you are the first to notice when something is about to change.
§OEE—how to measure effectiveness
TPM's effect is often measured in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) which combines three numbers: what proportion of the time the system is actually available what proportion it operates at full capacity and how much of production meets quality requirements. TPM's goal is to improve all three by reducing unplanned downtime preventing major breakdowns and catching quality errors early — instead of accepting them as a fixed part of everyday life.
| Type of maintenance | When it is used |
|---|---|
| Corrective | After the facility has already broken down |
| Preventive | According to a fixed schedule, regardless of whether the facility shows signs of malfunction |
| Predictive | Based on measured data — e.g. vibration or temperature — showing early wear |
| Autonomous | The operator's daily cleaning, lubrication and inspection |
§Why it pays off to prevent rather than repair
An unplanned shutdown is expensive in more ways than just the repair: production stops, an entire order can be delayed, and an error discovered late may have damaged material in progress. Preventive and autonomous maintenance shifts effort from emergency repairs to calm, scheduled checks—it extends equipment life, reduces the risk of sudden dangerous situations, and makes production more predictable for everyone on the team.
“The best repair is the one that never becomes necessary because someone caught the sign in time.”