(Nick Rich and Denis McCarthy)

Both Lean Thinking and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) have evolved in parallel from their early concepts and converging towards a common goal (Rich, 2002). Both are company-wide approaches and not narrow sets of techniques. They have both achieved significant results by delivering practical solutions to different business issues. 'Lean Thinking' has tools to design efficient supply chains (Womack and Jones, 1996). TPM has tools to improve operational effectiveness (Willmott and McCarthy, 2000). The combination of these approaches improves both operational efficiency and organisational effectiveness. Without this focus it would be all too easy to make improvements but not to convert this efficiency into cash by lowering inventory buffers in a controlled manner. In this respect a staged approach to implementation must be adopted to avoid 'kamikaze improvements' that generate more heat than improvement. To achieve improvements it is imperative that the approaches are not defined narrowly and that a cross-functional management (CFM) infrastructure is created to ensure the benefits of the change programme can be exploited properly.

The Lean TPM implementation route map provides the change process to align accountabilities and progressively ratchet up operational capability. Such a route map helps to co-ordinate the application of Lean Thinking and TPM tools and techniques to secure continuous improvement in business performance in terms of Quality, Cost and Delivery.

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