Lean Enterprise Institute Logo
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Cart (0)
  • Account
  • Search
Lean Enterprise Institute Logo
  • Explore Lean
        • What is Lean?
        • The Lean Transformation Framework
        • A Brief History of Lean
        • Lexicon Terms
        • Topics to explore
          • Operations
          • Lean Product & Process Development
          • Administration & Support
          • Problem-Solving
          • Coaching
          • Executive Leadership
          • Line Management
  • The Lean Post
        • Subscribe to see exclusive content
          • Subscribe
        • Featured posts
          office sign that says - Kaizen Promotion Office

          Ask Art: Why Do I Need a...

          WLEI Podcast with author Paulo Savaget of The Four Workarounds

          Strategies for Tackling Complex Problems: a Conversation...

          • See all Posts
  • Events & Training
        • Custom Coaching and Learning Experiences
        • Co-Learning Partnerships
        • Forms and Templates
        • Featured learning
          • Improvement Kata/Coaching Kata Remotely

            April 10, 2023 | Online Live Course

          • Developing Structured Problem-Solving and Leadership Skills using A3 Thinking: Managing to Learn Remotely

            April 17, 2023 | Online Live Course

          • Hoshin Kanri Remotely: Aligning and Executing on Your Organizational Objectives

            April 21, 2023 | Online Live Course

          • Designing the Future Remotely: A Lean Product Development Immersive Learning Experience

            April 24, 2023 | Online Live Course

          • See all Events
  • Store
        • Shopping Cart
        • Featured books
          Managing to Learn: Using the A3 management process

          Managing to Learn: Using the A3 management process

          Learning to See

          Learning to See

          • See all Books
  • About Us
        • Our people
          • Senior Advisors and Staff
          • Faculty
          • Board of Directors
        • Contact Us
        • Lean Global Network
        • Press Releases
        • In the News
        • Careers
        • About us

The Lean Post / Articles / The Hunt for Alligator Eggs

The Hunt for Alligator Eggs

Coaching

The Hunt for Alligator Eggs

September 20, 2013

"Like alligator eggs, problems often start small. If you wait a while and ignore them, those eggs hatch," writes Ellis New. "Wait a little longer, and the hatchlings are well on their way to becoming six-footers." How do you prevent this scenario from happening in your organization? Implement TPM (Total Productive Maintenance).

FacebookTweetLinkedInEmailPrintComment

When I think about problems and abnormalities, I think about alligators. Like alligator eggs, which are about the size of a goose egg, problems often start small. Of course, if you wait a while and ignore them, those harmless-looking “eggs” will hatch. Wait a little longer, and the hatchlings will be swimming around, growing stronger, and well on their way to becoming six-footers.

When a six-footer bites you, it hurts. And when it occurs on a piece of equipment, that’s often the first time maintenance gets called in to take a look. But in the early stages of development, abnormalities are usually not doing enough damage to stop your machine. So the operators just keep clearing those alligators away 15 or 20 times a day. Keep ignoring them, and the next thing you know one of them is going to rear its ugly head and you’ll find that it’s grown up to be an 18-footer. And that noise you’ve been hearing and ignoring? It will take out a critical piece of equipment that you need to keep running in order to fulfill a contract order for your key customer. I’ve had some personal experience with that, when people’s jobs were on the line. So I know how the cost of taking out an egg compares with trying to fix an operation that’s been broken by an 18-footer.

That’s where TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) comes in. TPM is often thought of as the equivalent of implementing predictive and preventive maintenance to keep things running smoothly; and perhaps as a way of applying lean thinking to the maintenance department so they can fix things faster with less waste.

Those statements are partially true. But at its heart TPM aims for total asset reliability, and requires total employee involvement. Like lean, TPM is a process that’s systematic, data-driven, and engages those closest to the work. Achieving true lean flow is not possible without it. And TPM, used effectively, lets you transition out of reactive maintenance and create low-cost—even free—capacity.

So it’s a lot more than predictive, preventive, or “lean” maintenance. A fair analogy would go something like this:

  • changing your car’s oil regularly is “preventive maintenance”
  • analyzing the oil would be “predictive maintenance”
  • knowing the engine and understanding what keeps it running smoothly would be “autonomous maintenance”
  • performing all of the above is TPM

Where I come from, we started calling TPM a “gator hunt.” Our objective was to find as many alligator eggs as we could, because the eggs don’t bite at all. But they are hard to find. To do it, you need to develop a partnership between production, maintenance, and engineering. That includes training operators how to properly operate and maintain their equipment so that they know what to look for, listen for, smell for, and feel for—that’s autonomous maintenance, one of the pillars of TPM. (By the way, that’s not “autonomous fix and repair,” or getting operators to do repairs so you can eliminate maintenance.) Autonomous maintenance is a rigorous process that involves operators and promotes systematic restoration of equipment by controlling abnormalities and losses to the point of eliminating them.

You also have to empower operators to use their knowledge. And that means that when they call you and say, “Something’s not right about that gear box,” you don’t say, “Hey, don’t call me up anymore if that machine’s still running.” In other words, TPM is a true cultural change – a change in everyday behavior across your organization.

Leaders often ask me, “How do you go about getting buy-in from operators who don’t consider this to be their responsibility, and from maintenance staff who believe they’re being asked to give up key parts of their jobs?” My answer, based on 20 years of experience with TPM, is this: You won’t have any problem getting buy-in. Your people have wanted to do this for a long time. When the goals, structures, and methods of TPM are communicated effectively, any resistance you encounter is the exception, not the norm. Maintenance and production people who are worth their salt know that working the “old way” (without a TPM culture) is not the way to run a business.

Not every alligator egg grows up to be an eighteen-footer, but guess what every eighteen-footer was at one time in its life cycle? The more eggs you take out of the process, the easier you’re going to make everyone’s jobs, and the less likely you are statistically to get bitten by a six-footer or an eighteen-footer. 

FacebookTweetLinkedInEmailPrintComment

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

jpw fund for the numbers

Coaching

Assessing a New Way to Develop More Lean Thinkers

Article by Patricia Panchak

a group of people holding large puzzle pieces

Coaching

How to Get the Most from Your A3 Thinking and Practice

Article by Lean Leaper

Students Take the Lead in JPW Fund Internship

Coaching

Students Take the Lead in JPW Fund Internship

Article by Patricia Panchak

Related books

The Gold Mine (Audio CD)

The Gold Mine (Audio CD)

by Freddy Ballé and Michael Ballé

graphical user interface

Four Types of Problems / Managing to Learn Set

by John Shook and Art Smalley

Related events

April 10, 2023 | Online Live Course

Improvement Kata/Coaching Kata Remotely

Learn more

April 17, 2023 | Online Live Course

Developing Structured Problem-Solving and Leadership Skills using A3 Thinking: Managing to Learn Remotely

Learn more

Explore topics

Coaching graphic icon Coaching
Problem Solving graphic icon Problem Solving

Subscribe to get the very best of lean thinking delivered right to your inbox

Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

©Copyright 2000-2023 Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.
Lean Enterprise Institute, the leaper image, and stick figure are registered trademarks of Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Learn More. ACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!