RSA RELIABILITY NEWSLETTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, should you be interested in contributing to our articles section or share any feedback, I encourage you to email me at  rollyangeles@rsareliability.com.  If for any reason you wish to unsubscribe from our newsletter, kindly send me a blank email with unsubscribe as the heading and we shall remove you from our mailing lists.

 

Once again welcome to our April Edition of our Monthly Reliability Newsletter for this year 2008 and I hope that you enjoy reading.

 

My Warm Regards,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer to March 2008 Puzzle

 

Comb if the actress really claims that an assailant was in her room and went out of the door then the comb will not be in its original place since it will also be moved as the door was swayed.  It was impossible for the comb not to move if someone goes out of the door, this is known as positional evidence.

 

My TPM Experience, A Successful Failure

 

As Tom Hanks said, in his role on the movie “Apollo 13”,  Our mission was a successful failure, successful that we return safely to the earth but failure since we never landed on the moon.  I think and feel the same way,  spending 7 years in TPM was quite frustrating, yet very rewarding.  This is where I truly learn what TPM is all about and it is all about people and not machines.  The real challenge is making it a way of life for all people and a part of their culture.  In view of the sensitivity of this newsletter, I'll just call this company Company Bravo.

 

In 1995, I worked in Company Bravo as a production supervisor for 3 months, until I was transferred to one department, we call the TPM Office.  It was a newly established department in the organization.  There were 6 of us, which includes the TPM Manager, her secretary and 4 engineers, myself included.  The three engineers were assigned on the following pillars, one engineer handling Autonomous Maintenance, another handling Office and Administrative TPM, the other engineer handling Planned Maintenance. Since, I was new at this plant, I was assigned to be an assistant to all of them, Rolly, can you Xerox this 10 copies please, can you call all of this people for a meeting and all sort of this and that.

 

Since, all of us were ignorant on what TPM is all about and how to go about each step, my TPM Boss decided to purchase several books on TPM which was divided among the engineers and we spend our days reading.  In the afternoon, there was always a brainstorming session which lasted for hours on how to go about each of the TPM Pillars.  I was always at the back listening to them and sometimes was called upon to ask my point of view,  I think that is were I was allowed to speak up.      

 

Six months had passed and a sad thing happened.  The Planned Maintenance engineer died of cancer,  and so a replacement was to be in place, until one morning, my TPM Boss called me to his office and told me, Rolly, I want you to handle Planned Maintenance, there is no other person I can think off  and see fit to handle this than you.  From now on you will handle Planned Maintenance and these are the people in the maintenance department you need to see.  My expression was overwhelming, Wow, simply Wow, was my reaction, that was the only motivation I have from my boss, yet until now, I can remember his words vividly in my mind.  I guess, as we grow old there are things worth remembering even if we forget a lot of things.

 

And so this is how I started in TPM.  Since, changes in this organization was abrupt, I think, I recall, serving with at least 5 TPM boss, they were replaced all the time.  My last boss was formerly the training department manager and was transferred to the TPM Office.  Later on our TPM efforts was focused on 2 plants, the other plant was 3 to 4 times larger with respect to the number of people.  Our office was now serving at least around 8,000 people from the 2 plants.  Two people were added into the office to take care of it.  Our TPM Office staff were now 8 including the secretary.  This time, I was also asked to handle the EEM or Early Equipment Management pillar of TPM and partly Focused Improvement.

 

TPM days were tough, you need to push people and remind them “Always” of the journey to excellence. Work along with the other pillars as well such as Autonomous Maintenance and Focused Improvement and later on Early Equipment Management.  Our mission was how to get our pillars moving and get the people on doing TPM.  Our CEO was committed with TPM, and appreciates the reports and progress the different pillars of TPM are experiencing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through the years in our Planned Maintenance journey, we held yearly strategic planning,  we have recognitions and rewards to teams that performed well, and we even have in-house symposiums exclusively for the maintenance people for sharing their improvement which was in the form of competition   It was really a lot of work for me but the rewards and fruits are beyond expectation, it was such a success.

 

Moral was very high with the Planned Maintenance team, in fact all members meet weekly to discuss each and everyone’s progress, which they report to me and I summarize.  We have the highest attendance record compared to the rest of the TPM Pillars at 92%.  Each member knows what he will be missing if he was not present and each of them know that it’s a mortal sin to be absent on the planned maintenance meeting.  No one was late, simply because of one simple rule on tardiness, I impose where last person to enter the door will have to pay all the bills on the snack.  Each of these people represent their department, most where senior engineers, others are managers and it opened doors and lines of communication on each other.  There were quite a number of times during the meeting where they share their people resources since they are not fully loaded in their operations and even spares.  Through these meetings we learn several spare parts which are the same in specs, used by the same equipment but different part number, since we have a lot of common equipments on every operations department. Bottom line we learn so much by keeping our lines of communication open, I guess this was one of the reasons why they attend the meetings plus the food of course.

 

By the year 2000, we decided to challenge the JIPM Awards for TPM Excellence Awards, 2nd category and our dream to be the 2nd industry from our country to attain it.  We hire a JIPM consultant and an interpreter since the consultant can hardly speak English.  The JIPM Consultant comes in every quarter spending around 2 days on line tours and details on what we need to accomplish which he wanted to see on his next visit.

 

There was so much pressure on the TPM Office since everyone now is doing TPM, I though previously that the pressure is when the people are stubborn in doing TPM. Each of us (8,000) people in the plant from the 3 shifts knows that we are aiming for the TPM Awards.  We at TPM Office were so busy most specially on departments which are not up to speed in their roadmap.  Our CEO was excited and even called us a couple of times at the TPM lobby where all the awards, trophies and recognition of this plant are place and show us a spot where he wanted TPM Award trophy to be placed, and ask us, when can I see this award ? I think being in my shoes you can feel the excitement and pressure. Everyone was doing their part on TPM.  It was a dream come true,  we have change people.  Scores of improvements were evident not only on my pillar but on each TPM Pillar, well of course, our Planned Maintenance pillar garnered the most number of improvements in a span of 4 years, with a total of  9,272 improvements and a cost savings of Php 5,787,369.72 not to mention the dramatic reduction in our repairs and maintenance costs and the excluding the savings our Predictive Maintenance group had initiated.  MTBF improve and the number of breakdowns reduced dramatically.  (This was our actual graph where BDO stands for Breakdown Occurrences or Number of breakdowns on their equipments)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last visit of our consultant was in 2001, as far as I can recall it was the 2nd quarter of 2001.  At the end of every visit , he would have a meeting with all TPM Pillars and members in a big room to assess his results.  He would talk about his findings on every pillar and when it was time to discussed the Planned Maintenance pillar, he simply put his two hands and made a sign of 2 thumbs up.  Planned Maintenance very good.  I believe that was his message.  His last words as translated by the interpreter Company Bravo now ready for JIPM Awards, I will report this to my office and it is time for you to make the JIPM Book. There was a round of applause from all of us.  It was a relief for us all at the TPM Office, after all the preparations, meetings, trainings, and all the hustle, we are ready for the awards, our JIPM Consultant was confident that we will pass the initial assessment (since there are 2 assessments needed to achieve the most coveted TPM Excellence Awards).  And that was the last time, I saw the consultant.  I told him that someday, I want to be like you, he said, you are good Rolly.

 

One day, my TPM colleagues said, have you heard the news ? I said what news ? Our CEO is being replaced by a new one.  I though it was not much a big deal to what we are doing but I guess I was dead wrong.  One day, our boss told us that our senior VP (2nd in highest command) wanted to talk to us and asked us all in the TPM office to come to his office, and so we did.  He was frank and straight to the point, and I honestly do not want to accept what I was hearing.  He said that from now own TPM Office will be abolished, our new president do not believe in TPM, you are hereby given 2 options, resign or transfer to other department.  I simply stand up and said, Sir, we are just a few miles from the finish line in getting the awards, lets go for it.  He looked at me and said, I know,  but I am just following orders.  6 of us transferred to other departments, 2 of us resign, there was tears in my eyes when I left that room, yet I said if company bravo do not want TPM then I will look for a plant that wanted TPM, simply stated, I can’t let go since I’ve seen people change because of TPM.

 

News easily spread that the plant will no longer be pursuing TPM and that the TPM Office was to be abolished.  My phone kept ringing verifying if the news was true and that my members are asking me if we were still going to do planned maintenance, I simply said, the big guys wanted us to drop it so lets just drop it.  It was like the World Trade Center standing and in the blink of an eye, and then suddenly collapse. I feel like Nicolas Cage trapped beneath the rubbles of the World Trade Center.  TPM was my life and it collapse right in my very eyes.   I believe that the new president believes in more in Lean Organization and not TPM.

 

To cut the story short, I officially resign from this company in the 4rth quarter of 2001 but we were given 3 months free where we don’t have to report to work any more and still received our benefits and salary.  In 2002, I ended up in a mining firm as a training manager where I develop and study further reliability best practices and certainly Lean Manufacturing is not one of them.  I resigned from this company in 2005 and decided to carry on my own consulting business which up to now is still what I am currently doing. 

 

Last February of 2005, I was acquired by company bravo and provided a contract to teach reliability courses and improvement initiatives and guess what one of the courses I teach is Planned Maintenance.  I had learned that they finally realized their mistake and looking forward in accepting  TPM once again.  But they have to start from the beginning, this is their set-back.  I also learn that only 1 person from the original TPM Office was still at this plant, while  the rest had resign and are now working in other industries.  I was asked a couple of times if I wanted to have my old job back at TPM and I said much willingly “YES” but only on one condition, I will only work with my old team, if you can bring them back then I will come back.

 

My experience with TPM is one that is worth sharing,  we were successful as proven in our records that we have achieved dramatic improvements in our breakdown reduction,  increase in MTBF and reduction in maintenance costs.  I see people change because of the results they achieve, those who are pessimistic all the time with TPM are the once in the frontline and even preaching TPM with their people.  TPM change attitudes, it change lives. Our Planned Maintenance team moved mountains.

 

I failed because we did not achieve the JIPM Awards, for reasons way beyond the scope of my responsibility during those times. Yet, in my heart and mind, there will always be a place for TPM. My experience with TPM, is that it was simply a case of a successful failure.