ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a definition of total productive maintenance and explains its elements. It looks at the history of equipment management in Japan. The concept of preventive maintenance (PM) was introduced to Japan from the United States in 1951. Before PM, companies generally practiced breakdown maintenance, which means fixing equipment only after it has broken down. Corrective maintenance (CM) promotes repairs that make the same breakdown less likely to happen again. The PM, CM, and MP approaches were consolidated under a new type of approach called PM, which in this case stands for productive maintenance. Improvement-related maintenance activities are those intended to improve the equipment, and thereby reduce future breakdowns or defects. In the development of new equipment, maintenance prevention is needed at the design stage. These activities are aimed at making the equipment reliable, easy to take care of, and user-friendly so operators can easily retool, adjust, and otherwise operate it.
