Autonomous Maintenance and Standardized Work in TPM

The article presents how Autonomous Maintenance is supported by standardized work. It outlines the benefits of implementing TPM, AM, and standardized work, shows how AM is part of standardized work, and provides practical examples of standardization in industry.

Benefits of Implementing AM – Autonomous Maintenance

Autonomous Maintenance (AM) is a cornerstone of the TPM system (Total Productive Maintenance), developed in Japan in the early 1970s. The roots of this philosophy, however, reach back to the early 1950s, when Japanese companies—modeled on American enterprises—began to apply preventive inspections of machines and equipment. The final TPM concept involved transferring as many cleaning and basic maintenance tasks on machines as possible from maintenance technicians to direct production operators. Operators began to play a significant role in TPM, and the maintenance tasks they performed became known as Autonomous Maintenance. The great potential seen in operators stems mainly from the fact that they are closest to the machines and can react to problems the fastest. Moreover, in practice there are many more production operators than Maintenance Department (UR) employees, which makes it easier to distribute a range of machine care tasks among them.

Implementing AM as a pillar of the company’s production system typically brings a number of benefits. The most important are listed below.

Improving Employees’ Awareness of Machine Design and Operation – Autonomous Maintenance

The goal of TPM is to reach a state in which the operator feels like the owner of the machine. This means they not only use it, but also take care of it. The evolution of machine care can be compared to parents looking after their children (Fig. 1). The most important aspect of this process is building the awareness of the “parents” (operators) who, upon noticing a problem (e.g., a rash) during daily “cleaning and maintenance” of their child (machine), will inform the “doctor” (Maintenance). With each subsequent child (machine), aware parents (operators) will be able to solve some problems on their own without calling the doctor (Maintenance). They will gain experience—which is the key both in good parenting and in the TPM system—while relieving the healthcare service (the Maintenance Department)!

Fig. 1. Autonomous “care” for children and machines

Lower Machine Failure Rates Through Operator Involvement in Reporting Abnormalities – Autonomous Maintenance

By building awareness, operators can detect abnormalities on machines and inform Maintenance before these issues turn into failures causing long downtime. Thanks to this awareness, when they hear a worrying noise or notice a leak, the operator will report it to Maintenance rather than ignore it because the machine is still “running.” Such abnormalities can be detected both during machine operation and while performing AM tasks—provided operators know what to look for.

Improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) – Autonomous Maintenance

Abnormalities don’t only precede outright failures. They can also lengthen changeovers, reduce speed, cause micro-stoppages, generate defects, or extend start-up times. These Six Big Losses reduce effectiveness. The more abnormalities operators identify, the higher the chance of eliminating these losses and improving machine utilization—and thus the OEE indicator.

Shorter Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) Thanks to Faster Response to Failures – Autonomous Maintenance

Operators are closest to the machine and can take basic corrective actions before Maintenance arrives. That’s why AM often includes operator response standards for failures (e.g., when the machine stops, a defined sequence of steps is executed before Maintenance is called). As a result, repairs happen much faster than in the traditional model of “Production produces, Maintenance repairs.”

The role of operators is a distinctive feature of TPM: it requires full and conscious engagement of production personnel in machine care. This awareness is crucial and is built through training and practice. It’s one of the core elements of the AM methodology, which consists of seven steps:

1. Thorough cleaning and inspection of the machine.

2. Identifying and eliminating sources of contamination.

3. Defining cleaning and maintenance standards.

4. Training employees in daily autonomous maintenance.

5. Implementing and supervising daily autonomous maintenance by the operator.

6. Improving organization and order through visual management.

7. Continuous improvement.

Standardized Work – The Key to Building Operator Awareness When Implementing AM

Hearing “standardized work,” you may first think of instructions pinned somewhere at the workstation. Unfortunately, this is a common approach where standardized work is reduced to documentation only. But does a posted instruction change anything in production? The answer is, of course, no. In companies where standardization is just documentation, instructions play a merely aesthetic or formal role—typically hanging untouched, perhaps only by an external auditor.

There is no doubt that instructions are important in standardized work! However, they exist primarily to deliver effective on-the-job training or to subject the operation to a continuous improvement process. Instructions are therefore only an intermediate means to the goal of standardizing the production process. They are not a goal in themselves. Is it still worth developing work instructions? Absolutely. The quality of instructions significantly affects how on-the-job training and work analysis for improvement are carried out. The quality of instructions strongly influences operator awareness. Standardized work is thus a process in which we record the currently best-known method, improve it, and then train operators in it (Fig. 2). The challenge is that this is not easy.

Fig. 2. The three main elements of standardized work

Standardized work brings numerous benefits but requires prior process stabilization, which involves:

• eliminating hazards at the workstation;

• eliminating basic machine problems (abnormalities, nonconformities);

• organizing a high-quality workstation (order and cleanliness).

There is no proper standardized work without prior stabilization. Table 1 shows how standardized work connects to the AM implementation methodology.

Table 1. The Relationship Between the Seven Steps of Autonomous Maintenance and Standardizing Production Processes

Efficient Creation of AM Instructions as a Key Challenge in Standardizing Autonomous Machine Care

As noted earlier, instructions are just one element necessary for training and improvement. However, their quality is crucial to the effectiveness of these activities. Ultimately, when implementing TPM in any factory, all machines should have defined AM tasks. Each machine, however, may require different tasks. Preparing AM instructions demands significant effort and time because a good AM instruction should include:

• the sequence of activities (what is done) – main steps;

• the method for performing the activities (how it is done) – key points;

• the reason for performing the activity in a specific way (why it is done this way) – rationales;

• the time to perform the activity (how long it takes);

• the tools and materials required (with what it is done);

• photos showing how to perform the activity—illustrating the key points.

By explaining the key points and the reasons behind them, AM instructions help eliminate human error. People learn a task when they know how to perform it (key points) and why that way is best (reasons). In the vast majority of factories where I have supported TPM implementation, AM instructions contained only steps—often mixed with key points—but lacked reasons. Check AM instructions in your factory and see whether reasons are included. With high probability, they are not. Remember: we build people’s awareness by telling them why, not only how. Awareness is built by explaining the significance of the work. As Francis Bacon said, “True knowledge is knowledge of causes.”

Instructions that meet the above criteria are called Standard Work Instructions (SWI).

Unfortunately, developing SWI takes a long time—especially in electronic form. In practice, writing out the steps on paper on the shop floor takes about 15 minutes. Another 10 minutes to take photos. But creating the electronic SWI usually takes around 60 minutes—even for someone experienced with editing software. Proper formatting, adding symbols to photos, etc. is a significant challenge. SWI should be created by the most experienced leaders and operators. Often these people are not proficient with office software, so companies appoint a dedicated person to “retype” instructions drafted by operators and leaders. This frequently leads to mistakes and distortions—creating the wastes of overprocessing and excess communication. I believe electronic SWI should also be created by operators and leaders—but that requires an appropriate IT system to support them.

IT Systems as a Solution for Effectively Standardizing Autonomous Machine Care Activities

Standard Work Instructions (SWI) are the foundation for effective on-the-job training, which is based on the relationship between trainer and trainee. Using IT in on-the-job training can be a nice add-on, but it is not essential. The situation is the opposite with creating SWI, which must be produced in electronic form—not only for better presentation, but because instructions are continuously updated.

A good system for creating SWI must be intuitive and simple for users. It should embed the most important SWI rules, including:

• a defined word limit for describing main steps, key points, and reasons (e.g., max. 5 words for steps and key points);

• guidance on which words not to use (e.g., “proper dimension,” “appropriate size”);

• a method for timing main steps (defining the shortest repeatable time);

• tips on how to take photos that clearly depict key points (perspective, what to highlight);

• a way to assign symbols to reasons (categories linked to safety, quality, correctness, or “tricks”).

The goal of the IT system should be to enable anyone, even with limited computer skills, to prepare an electronic SWI in no more than 10 minutes. That saves nearly 50 minutes per instruction. Human work on the electronic version should boil down to filling in fields (steps, key points, reasons), uploading photos, marking key points with arrows, and exporting to PDF—without manual formatting or desktop publishing. That should be the role of the IT system.

The rollout of standardized work is often stalled by the huge workload of creating instructions in a new, better way. Remember that the key in standardized work is training people and improving methods—but these activities are impossible without good SWI. IT systems should support their creation.

Article information:
Published in Służby Utrzymania Ruchu magazine (September–October 2015).

Dr inż. Bartosz Misiurek

CEO at Leantrix | 501240762 | [email protected]

I am a promoter of Lean Management and the Training Within Industry program. I am a practitioner. I co-create many startups. Since 2015, I have been the CEO of Leantrix - a leading Lean consulting company in Poland, which, starting from 2024, organizes one of the largest conferences dedicated to lean management in Poland - the Lean TWI Summit. Since 2019, I have been the CEO of Do Lean IT OU, a company registered in Estonia that creates the software etwi.io, used by dozens of manufacturing and service companies in Europe and the USA.