Total productive maintenance

Concept

A maintenance approach from Japan in which operators and maintenance staff together keep equipment in good condition, aiming at no breakdowns, no defects and no accidents. It is closely tied to OEE.

Description

Total productive maintenance, or TPM, treats maintenance as a task for the whole plant and not only for a maintenance department. Operators take over simple daily care, such as cleaning, inspecting, lubricating and tightening, which is known as autonomous maintenance. Specialists focus on planned maintenance, repairs that remove the root cause and improvements to the equipment itself.

The goal is often summed up as zero breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents. TPM is usually organised in pillars, and its main measure is OEE, which shows losses from stops, slow running and defects. The method grew in Japan after the 1960s and is part of many lean and operational excellence programmes. 5S is often the first step, because a clean and ordered machine shows problems early.

Related topics in brief

• iFAKT GmbH · Related to · Organization
  Stuttgart-based consulting company and software specialist for Industry 4.0, founded in 2001, that helps manufacturers plan and optimize production and logistics processes; developer of the Polaris software.
• Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) · Related to · Concept
  A manufacturing metric for how effectively equipment is used, combining availability, performance and quality.
• Micro-stops · Related to · Concept
  Very short interruptions of a machine, often under a few minutes, that the operator clears quickly and that often go unrecorded, but that add up to large losses of availability.
• 5S · Related to · Concept
  A workplace organization method with five steps (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain) that keeps tools and materials in their place, makes problems visible and supports safe, efficient work.
• Lean management · Related to · Concept
  A management approach derived from the Toyota Production System that creates more value for customers with fewer resources by removing waste, improving flow and involving the people who do the work in continuous improvement.
• Polaris Analyzer · Related to · Product
  Module of iFAKT Polaris with KPI dashboards across all modules that compare planned and actual values in production.

Glossary

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Experts on related topics

• Mirko Peters · via iFAKT GmbH

Maintained by Mirko Peters (Microsoft MVP) · Last updated: 2026-11-11