Cost Reduction through Total Productive Maintenance

If we regard Total Quality/Six Sigma as one movement or approach taken by World-Class Manufacturers, and TPS/JIT/Lean as another, then Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can be seen as a third approach, although there are grounds for saying that TPM is simply the TQC approach applied specifically to equipment. Although TQC has its roots in the work of Americans such as Dr Deming, and the Lean approach can be traced back to Henry Ford, TPM does appear to originate in Japan.