Description

This theme concentrates on equipment-centred Lean improvement and the systematic elimination of manufacturing losses associated with machine availability, operating performance, quality, setup, breakdowns, minor stoppages and deterioration. It integrates Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), autonomous maintenance, planned and preventive maintenance, condition-based and predictive maintenance, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), availability, performance and quality losses, the Six Big Losses, breakdown and failure analysis, Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), setup-time reduction, reliability, maintainability, equipment bottleneck analysis and continuous equipment improvement. TPM is treated not merely as a maintenance-department programme but as a production-wide system involving operators, technicians, engineers and management in preserving basic equipment conditions and preventing losses. The research design should establish reliable baselines before intervention and distinguish equipment-related losses from losses caused by material, scheduling, labour, quality or upstream/downstream constraints.