Yes, assures the CCI TPM Club. Tanfac Industries has cleared the pre-assessment for the TPM Excellence Award this year and is likely to be the claimant of this prestigious award from Japan. Tanfac has been implementing TPM at its chemical plant over the last four years and has invested Rs 8.03 crore in making modifications/kaizen implementation. Apart from achieving a recurring saving of Rs 3.37 crore, Tanfac has achieved zero quality complaints, and zero accidents, while productivity has gone up by 40 per cent and turnover by 45 per cent.

Bajaj Auto Ltd has started implementing TPM at its plant eight months ago. Madhur Bajaj, president of Bajaj said that the company has launched TPM in twocells and will soon spread to the 100 cells that will cover the entire shop floor. There are plans to take TPM to the Waluj plant at Aurangaband and the new plant coming up in Chakan. ``Those implementing TPM have experienced cost reduction by 30 per cent and achieved overall equipment efficiency of 125 per cent of its rated level even after 20 to 30 years of use,'' says Bajaj.

The other companies in Pune that have initiated TPM are Philips India, Tata Autoplast, DGP Hinoday and the tea processing and packaging plant of Hindustan Lever. Incidentally, Yamaguchi is spearheading TPM in Unilever's worldwide operations. The HLL board has decided to implement TPM across factories. TPM has been kicked off in four factories and five more are likely to be added this year. The detergent factory at Sumerpur, UP, is working on TPM since 1994 and preaudit for TPM Award Part I is expected by end 1999.

According to the CII TPM Club nearly 50 companies across the country have initiated work on implementing TPM. TheChennai-based Suresh Krishna-led TPM Club membership has also gone up to 125.

Yamaguchi: Indian companies interested in productivity, not TPM

It is possible for Indian companies to reach the Se San Ho Zen level or the state of `perfect manufacturing' when their plants will deliver zero defects, zero customer complaints and zero breakdowns, says Sueo Yamaguchi, TPM consultant from the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) and the guru of TPM movement in India. So far only two companies -- Sundaram Fasteners in 1998 and Vikram Cements in 1995 -- have qualified for the TPM award of JIPM but a few more will be joining this list as the TMP movement is spreading its wings in India.

Yamaguchi was addressing the first seminar on Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) awareness organised in the western region. The programme is a joint effort of CII, JIPM and the TPM Club India. According to Yamaguchi, one of the main reasons for only two companies making it to the winners podium was the lack of interestamong the top management in Indian companies: they want to increase productivity but are not interested in TPM. Yamaguchi says most top managements confuse TPM with breakdown maintenance. TPM means setting top standards and to understand and implement this it would need a change of mindset in the industry, Yamaguchi said.

Earlier Baba Kalyani chairman, CII (western region) and CMD of Bharat Forge Limited cautioned that instead of reaping benefits from these concepts, they sometimes turns out to be just another fad for the Indian industry. ``We experiment with different ideas and concepts and do not stick to one and so it does not realise its full potential,'' Kalyani said. Faced with competition from multinationals Indian industry is cutting costs ruthlessly using traditional approaches like down-sizing and reducing peripheral costs. ``But this has in no way made us more competitive. So in addition to reducing cost we must also aggressively find export markets,'' Kalyani said.