Sydney Consulting Corporation - Total Productive Maintenance

Australian Vinyls Corporation

The project achieved its objectives, implementing an efficient and effective planning process along with performance measures which cascade from the business plan.

Total Productive Maintenance bridges the gap between vision and performance

What is TPM?

There is little point in revolutionising your management structure and growth strategies if production or service capacity is undermined by failed or unavailable plant and equipment. This leads to reduced process utilisation and diminished labour productivity, which simply results in increased costs.

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is the key to creating a smooth running, efficient and available production capacity.

The TPM Solution

TPM aims to optimise a production environment where "every piece of equipment is available when needed, to perform its required task so that production is never compromised." TPM engages the total workforce at all levels.

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TPM moves the organisation from a reactive culture of persistent breakdowns and crises during scheduled production time to a preventative and then predictive state of proactive control. The resultant benefits are:

Increased equipment availability
Increased equipment efficiency
Increased "First Time Through" (FTT) quality performance
Reduced downtime during scheduled production
Increased Return on Capital Invested (ROCI)
Increased overall capacity
Increased employee skill levels
Increased employee empowerment job satisfaction and safety

Discovering real performance levels with OEE?

OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is the key indicator of performance for your company's capital assets and it highlights the effects of equipment-related loss by accurately tracking:

Downtime due to machine breakdown
Time required for setup and adjustment
Time or cycles lost due to inefficient setup
Time or cycles lost due to tooling
Time or cycles lost due to work stoppages
Capacity lost to less-than-ideal operating speeds
Production of defective or inferior product

Sydney Consulting will initially target an OEE performance of about 85%.

Making it happen

Once the results of the OEE analysis identify the current status of a production process, three forms of maintenance program are specifically initiated to target the relevant element of the OEE metric:

Autonomous Maintenance

There are two goals to successful Autonomous Maintenance:

Ensuring that equipment operators do more than simply operate the equipment efficiently. Operators are trained to take ownership of their equipment and its operation being alert and reporting potential problems before they occur.
Ensuring that key personnel are performing tasks that they are best suited to.

This means maintenance staff will be free to concentrate on reliability-centred maintenance and equipment/process redesign. In turn, this will free the senior engineering team to focus on the larger questions of strategy, equipment life-cycle planning, capital/asset maximisation and improved profitability.

By implementing a controlled program of autonomous maintenance, the net result is a more effective workforce across the board.

Equipment Life-Cycle Planning

This process will maximise your company's return on its capital equipment investment. It is a management program that involves five phases:

Specification
Procurement
Start-up or commissioning
Operation
Disposal of obsolete equipment

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Continuous Improvement Activities

The final element that Sydney Consulting will introduce is a series of measures and processes designed to bring all relevant staff members together to plan and implement ongoing activities. It will result in staff members taking ownership of their activities and improvements in efficiency will quickly follow.

The typical outcomes

Implementation of a TPM strategy reaps enormous financial benefit in:

Unit cost reduction
Capital cost avoidance due to increasing effective capacity
Creating the opportunity for organic growth and flexibility
Responsiveness to customer requirements

Many of our clients have been amazed at the speed at which improvements are noticed - typically within 4-6 months.

The bottom line

Sydney Consulting regularly delivers returns of between three and six to one to our clients within the first twelve months following the implementation of the new TPM system. With the focus we place on the sustainability of these new processes, the improved financial performance will continue well into the years ahead.

Please contact us to discuss a review of your company's performance and what results a Sydney Consulting Total Productive Maintenance system can deliver.

Stawell Gold Mines

" The expected benefit of the implementation project was to increase mined and milled tonnes by 25% over historical performance from the same fixed cost base. At present we are seeing a 17% increase in ore mined and a 20% increase in ore treated. "

Mr Mark Mitchell
General Manager
Stawell Gold Mines

RCR Tomlinson

" In July this year your team presented a proposal to improve productivity in our workshops by at least 15%. After 16 weeks of development and implementation at our Welshpool and Wacol workshops we have achieved productivity improvements of 25% over last year and this was achieved on lower overall workloads."

John Linden
Managing Director
RCR Tomlinson

Australian Vinyls Corp.

"...We initiated a project with Sydney Consulting to inculcate a fundamental change in the plant culture. The investment has been justified, providing a pay-back within the six month duration of the project... "

Mr Murray Winstanley
Managing Director
Australian Vinyls
Corporation Ltd