The initiation of Total Productive Maintenance to a pilot
production line in the German automobile industry

Abstract: At WITTE Automotive’s plant in Velbert, Germany, an effort has been started
to implement Total Productive Maintenance. It is a Production management
method and WITTE’s ultimate goal in introducing TPM is as a means to achieve
a leaner production and a calming of the material flow.
In Total Productive Maintenance, reliability and availability are the
ultimate goals and the way to accomplish the goals is through elimination of
the major losses. These losses are only due to mechanical nature and
visualised by the key figure Overall Equipment Effectiveness.
The goal of the thesis is to achieve an increase in produced units per hour
and employee from 140 to 160. In doing so, OEE should also increase, but any
gains in productivity or effectiveness should only be justified through
measures in TPM, not harder labour.
Through literature studies, a workshop with an experienced consultant and a
visit at the exemplary TPM implementing company ArcelorMittal in Bremen, the
tasks to be performed were set. In order to visualise production losses, a
sheet for recording production progress in a timely manner was developed,
together with a computer aided analysis, and the possibility to illustrate
the data for further evaluation. Meanwhile, the introduction of a task force
called TPM-Commando, specialised in eliminating the major losses was to be
supported and rendered a continuous improvement process to be applied.
Lastly, the author was to provide scheduling and visual aids for introducing
the workers to autonomous maintenance.
The start value for the thesis goals proved to be overestimated, with the
actual initial value at 115 produced units per hour and employee. If the
same improvement rate of 14% was to be applied to the new value, the new
goal was to top 130 pu/hEE. However, the expectations were surpassed and a
value of over 140 was averaged in a four week period, signifying an
increase in over 20%.
The most significant result however, is the fact that the trend is
increasing, as well as the fact that employees found the method to be
beneficial to both the company and the operators.
Consequently, recommendations were made to fortify the project TPM with a
project plan complete with goals and a timeline, as well as to assign
sufficient resources to the implementation.