Gurgaon: The five-member CII-Maruti cluster for TPM--consisting of Gabriel India, Clutch Auto, Jay Yushin, QH Talbros and host, Bharat Seats--was sure Professor S Yamaguchi would laud the TPM preparedness of Bharat Seats Ltd facility.The 13-year-old company, which manufactures seating systems for Maruti vehicles--sits virtually in the backyard of the main Maruti manufacturing facility at Gurgaon. With inhouse manufacturing facilities like tube-bending, weld shop, polyurethane moulding plant, head-rest moulding plant, stitching, assembly, testing and a tool room, the tour appeared to be routine and uneventful.
After all, Bharat Seats' managing director Rohit Relan was taking a personal interest in the TPM initiative--a necessary pre-condition for success. And, in the last four months--ever since the pre-TPM training began under TPM guru, Yamaguchi, consultant Japan Institute of Plant Management (JIPM)--it was the Bharat Seats managers who seemed to be the quickest to absorb concepts and most eager to implement them. So, what could go wrong?
Everything. For if on past factory visits, Professor Yamaguchi simmered dangerously, at Bharat Seats he came to a furious boil: at one stage, he brought the factory walkabout to a grinding halt, stamped off the shopfloor in rage, and threatened never to return. When after much pleading, cajoling and apologising, Professor Yamaguchi condescended to resume the tour, it was not before he had spoken his piece stridently.
For all its sound and fury though, it was a well-staged tantrum--designed to do Bharat Seats a favour. For, the guru quickly realised that the danger at Bharat Seats quite clearly was complacency and a belief that ``we are good at it''. So, if for other companies Professor Yamaguchi used a loud gong as a wake-up call, for Bharat Seats he needed a harsh clarion to push the company forward and onward. After the dust settles, Yamaguchi says, with a twinkle: ``I complain and shout in order to change the thinking style.''
Learning in a cluster
However, there is a lesson here, for the growing number of Maruti vendors grouping into clusters for TQM and TPM implementation, under the aegis of the CII. Within a cluster, the learning of theory, the sharing of ideas, and the pain of change can be similar--but each company has to maintain its own standards and each has to set its own stretch targets. In other words, for companies like Bharat Seats the message is: benchmark against the best of the best and not the best in the cluster. Says Yamaguchi: ``Continuous improvement has to be till you reach the optimal stage. Don't be happy with anything less.''
To illustrate the point, Yamaguchi cites the example of Mahindra & Mahindra, which after six months of preparation, formally kicked-off its TPM journey on September 28, 1999. However, when glowing presentations were made to the chief executive on the results achieved by TPM practices on five model machines on the shopfloor--costs are down to one-tenth, and production has increased 1.5 times--Anand Mahindra promptly turned around and told Yamaguchi: ``But five machines are nothing, I have 500 machines on the shopfloor.'' Says Yamguchi: ``TPM means good result. It is up to the managing director to follow up and constantly ask his managers: have you methe deadline?''
Today, at Bharat Seats, Yamaguchi wants to inspire that burning zeal in each cluster company--and to prepare them for a TPM kick-off by January 2000. Exhorts Yamaguchi: ``The point of TPM is not to reduce breakdowns for the sake of it. Instead, the focus at all times should be on how, by reducing breakdowns, you can reduce cost and increase productivity.'' Some shopfloor tips?
Always mark `optimal quantity'. Marking maximum and minimum quantity is not enough. Anything over maximum quantity shows wasted money, while less than minimum quantity shows production stopped.Also mark ``ordering points'' as this helps keep track of work-in-progress, which is nothing but the company's money.In TPM, always strive for dramatic reductions or total elimination--don't be content with marginal improvements.Be careful about concluding `worn out' as a breakdown cause. Check the past data for trends and periodicity. If a part breaks down every two years or every ten months, it is worn out. However, if the depreciation took place because of contamination or no lubrication, then the root cause is not wearing out.Use conveyor belts for small die changes and trolleys for big dies, in order to reduce tool change time.Measure production trends on a machine on a regular basis, and measure the total working hours. Then start tracking the machine's productivity: production divided by total hours.Track cost reduction by measuring the cost in rupees for every one piece manufactured.For each machine measure breakdown loss; set-up loss; start-up loss; and rejections due to rework and scrap.Next, for each loss track how many kaizens there are per month. Don't confuse counter-measures with kaizen. The latter implies a continuous improvement in results.For each machine fix targets in terms of increasing productivity and reducing rejections--and then set strict deadlines to achieve those targets.On the shopfloor, it is not enough to mark boxes, it should be visually possible to ascertain exactly how many are there at a time.If there is temporary stacking of non-standard boxes, mark those too--but use non-permanent markers.TPM is not Total Paint Man, so don't indiscriminately paint over machines and work surfaces.In the inventory stocking area, work-in-progress trolleys should be marked with where they have to go.Mark the identity of each and every tool in the tool shop and don't just use one generic name.Be consistent even in rack design so that visually it is easy to calculate the current inventory status.Don't have a rejection box on the shopfloor--the aim should be zero-rejections.Changing mindsets
As managers from cluster companies busily scribble notes, one change is visible in the cluster. For all Yamaguchi's despair on the slow progress of implementing just two basic pre-requisites of TPM -- ri (sorting) and Seiton (systemising) -- there is a marked improvement in the manner in which the cluster functions.
Yamaguchi's admonitions go down easier, there is a visible shift in the mindset of the TPM steering committees in each company, the presentations are crisper, and the top management of each cluster company is making it a point to attend Yamaguchi's sessions.
But most heartening of all--finally, the cluster is sharing ideas. Gabriel India for example admitted that it has picked up the idea of using a mixture of argon and carbon-di-oxide to control welding splatter and sparks. Next Clutch Auto comes forth with a good idea for implementing the third `S': Seiso, or `easy to clean'.
Clutch Auto was fed-up with the punch scrap generated by its huge T-press. So it raised the platform of the press to create a gathering area for the scrap; added a trolley so that all the scrap could be easily carted away; and closed an open flap to prevent the scrap from harming the machine. It's an idea each cluster member now plans to implement on the shopfloor. They may not be fluent in TPM as yet, but finally, the five companies are learning the talk the language.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.