Page 200 - DMGT524_TOTAL_QUALITY_MANAGEMENT

Unit 13: Total Productive Maintenance

Notes

Case Study Fine Papers, South Africa

TQM has Positive Impact on Paper Manufacturers
Fine Papers, a South African subsidiary of Sappi Limited, London, consisted of three mills,
Enstra, Stanger and Adamas. The implementation of both TQM and Reliability Centred
Maintenance (RCM) at the Enstra mill, an uncoated paper manufacturing unit, achieved a
positive impact on availability, reliability, quality and the elimination of waste. However,
quality was still variable and needed to be inspected throughout the process. As a further
improvement, Statistical Process Control (SPC) was introduced, process standards were
developed, and capability studies carried out. As a result, production processes were
simplified, quality was in-built at source and a move from inspection to prevention was
achieved. However, something was still lacking and the mill decided to implement Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM). TPM is an approach that improves product and process
reliability, which are important concepts in TQM. As part of the implementation of TPM:
1. A multi-disciplinary team, chaired by the production superintendent, was formed
and this enabled supplier issues such as non-conformance with specification of raw
materials to be addressed immediately; the supplier could be brought to the meeting
if required.
2. Autonomous maintenance tasks that enhanced and built on RCM methodologies
were identified as: (a) setup; (b) minor adjustments; (c) machine cleaning (to clean is
to inspect, which is a basic premise); (d) bolting (operators checking if bolts were
tight).
3. Identified training issues could also be addressed immediately by the human
resources representative.
4. Operational level day-to-day proactive problem identification and solving was
carried out using tools like the “five whys” to check whether other possible causes
of failure had been addressed-or whether failure could have been prevented and
what was needed to prevent possible reoccurrence of the failure.
5. Any problems identified were put on a gap list. Any gap that could not be closed by
the Strategic Business Unit team was then passed to the team at the next level, which
was known as the focus team.
6. A third-level team, called the integration team, was set up to solve problems at the
systemic level and a fourth level team, the strategic team, chaired by the general
manager and comprising all the heads of departments, was made responsible for
strategic issues and the entire productivity journey.
Staff agreed that TPM helped the company as a result of its structured and systematic
solution approach.
Questions

1. Do you agree with the opening statement of the case “TQM has positive impact on
paper manufacturer”? Explain why or why not.
2. Explain how teams were used by the company and what are the advantages of using
teams in TQM?
3. Do you think TPM is useful for a manufacturing organization? How?
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/DRDO-labs-adapting-to-TQM/articleshow/
839174.cms)

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