These five Maruti vendors--Jay Yuhshin, Bharat Seats, Clutch Auto, Gabriel India, and QH Talbros--have embarked on the TPM trail together, under the leadership of Yamaguchi-san, consultant, Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM), four months ago. So far, it's been rocky going: last month, Yamaguchi tore through the Gabriel India plant to teach two basic concepts, Seiri (sorting) and Seiton (systemising).

Today, it's the turn of Jay Yuhshin. A joint venture with U-shin of Japan, the 13-year-old company manufactures security systems, steering and ignition locks, body parts like door latches and switches, and instrument clusters. It posted a turnover of Rs 53 crore this year, with 90 per cent of sales accruing from Maruti.

After touring the Jay Yuhshin manufacturing facility, it is clear, that today, Yamaguchi is not so concerned with cleaning up the shopfloor. Instead, he is obsessed with clearing away the cobwebs in the mindset of the top management. It is time, therefore, to remind the five companies exactly why they are embarking on TPM. Says Yamaguchi: ``The purpose of TPM is to increase production and reduce cost.'' And for that, the companies will have to learn how to collect data--from scratch. As the Jay-Yuhshin presentation team gets bogged down in percentages, bar charts and irrelevant numbers, Yamaguchi throws up his hands in despair.

Crunching numbers wisely

His first diktat: measure absolutes rather than percentages. Says he: ``In TPM, percentage is meaningless. If you look at rejections in terms of percentage you might only see one per cent. Instead you should know exactly how many pieces are being rejected. If you don't know exactly how much money is being wasted, then percentages are just an excuse.''

A Jay Yuhshin manager claims that tool-change time on a particular machine in the last four months accounted for seven per cent of downtime. According to the TPM guru, what the company should actually be looking at is specifics: which process in the entire tool change activity accounted for exactly how much delay? Which were the chronic delay points? How can they be improved?

At Chennai-based Sundaram Fasteners for example, when the company began delving into why a particular machine's tool-change time was high, it discovered that the tool had eight bolts which needed to be loosened and tightened. The TPM team tinkered with the design of the machine, and reduced the number of bolts to just one. Net result: a huge drop in tool-change time, a rise in productivity, and all at no extra cost.

Diktat two: Don't collect data for the sake of it, crunch numbers to get results. ``If rejections fall from 60 to 50, it is crazy, because next month, it will again rise to 70. But if rejections fall from 60 to 5, then you know you are fixing the root cause.''

Diktat three: Track the rework cost as a per cent of sales. Interestingly, at Jay Yuhshin it turned out that while the company was meticulously tracking the rework cost of components bought from an outside supplier, it had no idea about its internal reworking costs! Says Yamaguchi: ``How can you reduce costs unless you calculate how much money is being wasted, at each step?''

Increasing production/ reducing cost

Eventually, any TPM initiative--from data collection to process improvement--should boil down to two key questions: has production increased and/or has cost reduced? Says Yamaguchi: ``TPM is all about how to increase production by reducing or eliminating losses like machine breakdown.''

To do that, recommends Yamaguchi, observe machines individually for rejections--don't just calculate overall rejection rates. Then, for each machine, track absolutes process-wise. Says Yamaguchi: ``That's because if processes are different, rejection data will be different too.''

Next: look at the rejection mode and spell out the exact problem. A mineral water bottle for example, can be rejected because its cap is too tight, or there are dirty particles inside, or the wrapper is torn. These physical phenomenon can then be sorted for common causes. Says Yamaguchi: ``A key point is to recognise that different physical phenomenon are due to different causes. For each cause you should ask `why did it happen'.''

To theorise on the causes, Yamaguchi suggests: first ascertain if the occurrence of the physical phenomenon is chronic or sporadic. Sporadic problems are those which are caused by one specific reason. For example,the dirty particles in the mineral water could be due to contamination of the main water tank. This requires just one countermeasure: fixing a lid on the tank.

Warns Yamaguchi: ``When listing the causes of a breakdown, never say ``improper operation''. Instead, be exact in identifying the nature of the problem. Otherwise it is like saying traffic accidents are due to improper driving.''

Chronic losses are those that happen when there is a departure from prescribed, no-rejection, conditions--such as `no dust', `no loose bolts, `temperature between 100 and 150 degree centigrade'.

Once the necessary conditions are known--the data is sufficient to resolve breakdowns. For example, if the machine stops it will soon be clear that stoppage was due to dust, or the temperature fell below 100 degrees. ``In chronic problems, rejection takes place due to a change in some condition. So the next question to ask is: why did it change?'' says Yamaguchi.

High fives

At this stage, Yamaguchi recommends the `Five Why' analysis. Says Yamaguchi: ``Each `why' should move on to a new idea. The final analysis will then automatically arrive at a countermeasure.'' Consider a physical phenomenon: a cylinder is not operating smoothly. The Five Whys would then be: