Philips Lighting applies TPM to reduce waste

Philips (Uden) produces and delivers ceramic light components to internal Philips customers. The products go into two main Philips products, SON and MASTERColour lamps. These products are widely used in street lighting in greenhouses, for lighting of buildings and for lighting shops, showrooms, hotels and public spaces.

Both discharge lamps have a high light output but are also energy efficient. The SON lamp uses half of the energy of high-pressure mercury lamps typically used in street lighting and the MASTERColour is an energy efficient replacement for halogen lamps.

Philips (Uden) currently use injection molding, a technique which is already widely used in plastics, to create the intricate shaped ceramic components.

Energy efficiency has become an important issue and global demand has risen for these products. This in turn has lead to rising demand for the ceramic components.

The Challenge

Philips (Uden) has been using Lean Improvement techniques to improve the productivity, delivery and quality of the factory for several years but they recognised the need to reduce costs even further to ensure that they remained competitive against emerging market competition.

The Objectives

The introduction of TPM was seen as a long term solution for the company which would allow the losses within the business to be identified and eliminated. This would allow them to achieve a production cost of €0.40 for a typical 70W ceramic component, a reduction of over 60% within a 4 year period.

The Industry Forum Solution

In 2010 Industry Forum and Philips (Uden) conducted initial management training and a pilot TPM project, focused primarily around Autonomous and Planned Maintenance on the Front and Mid End process. Following on from this a decision was taken by the Senior Leadership to use the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) Total Productive Maintenance Award as a structure to drive sustainable business improvement within the organisation.

During early 2011, further TPM Pillar training was conducted with members of the leadership team, followed by a roadmap activity to help establish a TPM Pillar structure and align it to the Vision and Strategy of the Philips (Uden) factory.

This improvement structure is known as ‘One Uden World Class Manufacture’. It includes the standard 8 TPM pillars that are assessed by JIPM together with 2 additional Philips Specific Pillars: Lean and Supply Chain.

Activities to support the introduction and sustainability of TPM within Philps (Uden) were conducted throughout the following 3 years. Periodic assessments against the JIPM Award criteria have shown that the Philips (Uden) team is on track to be to apply for the first level TPM Award in 2014.

Philips (Uden) already have examples of zero breakdown equipment and zero accidents, operators have ownership for their areas and OEE, delivery and quality has improved across all areas of the factory. Need some figures.

The Customer’s View

“With the implementation of TPM we have focus for our improvement process. The improvements are on all areas of the factory, and the co-operation between departments is significantly improved! IF has given us direction where to go to. In the beginning the support was explaining the concept and benefits of TPM, and later in the process IF regularly audited our progress and kept us on track.”

Source: Industry Forum