The TPM assessment in progress (left and right)

Four plants of Tata Steel have been cleared after a preliminary assessment by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance for its ‘TPM Excellence Award - 2004’.

TPM Award
Assessment
A TPM kick-off held recently

Competitiveness, sustainability and the need to maintain its position as the lowest cost producer in the world had prompted Tata Steel to adopt various improvement initiatives. The earliest among these was the Suggestion Management Scheme. Since then the company has rapidly moved on with Quality Circles, Value Engineering, Continuous Improvement Projects, Benchmarking and Total Operative Performance. All these have helped the company achieve its Vision of becoming EVA positive and the goal of establishing its supremacy as the lowest cost producer in the world.

As part of this effort, in 1999-2000 the company undertook to implement “Total Productive Maintenance” or TPM at some of its critical plants. These were the Hot Strip Mill, Precision Tube Mills (Tubes Division), Bearings Division (Kharagpur) and the Wire Rod Mill.

The confidence that this implementation has given the company has led all four plants to challenge the coveted ‘TPM Excellence Award - First category”. These plants are eligible to participate in the process as they have completed three years of implementing TPM activities.

The preliminary assessment for the TPM award was conducted by the committee members of the JIPM TPM Excellence Awards Committee, which administers the award, during the first week of February. All four plants cleared the preliminary assessment and have qualified for the next level of assessment, which is Document Assessment. This will be followed by the third or Final Assessment in November. The awards are then announced in December of each year.

The JIPM team with senior officers of Tata Steel

In 2003-04, TPM was launched at several plants of the company and now 44 plants/departments have either launched TPM or are in various stages of implementation. By April 2004, all plants of the company will have had TPM kick offs.