The world has been stunned by the Japanese manufacturing revolution! After World War II, Japanese industries realised that to compete successfully in the world market place they had to improve the quality of their products.

To achieve this, they learnt Western management and manufacturing techniques and adapted them to suit their circumstances. As a result, in the last forty years, Japan has been transformed from a producer of cheap and shoddy goods to a World Class producer!

The 'secret' of this success has been largely attributed to the use of relatively new Japanese style techniques such as Kaizen, 5S, small group activities, Just-In-Time (JIT), Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), poka-yoke, and kanban. However, efforts to apply these methods would be in vain without Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

TPM has remained much less well known outside of Japan. However, many Western companies are now beginning to realise just how important TPM is to their survival!