When looking to boost welding output, contractors and engineering firms historically added more welding equipment and hired more welders. With the chronic shortage of qualified operations and tighter budgets, these tactics are now options of last resort. Instead of hiring and spending capital, today's leading-edge companies boost welding output by implementing a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) program to increase competitiveness.

In some circles, TPM also means Total Process Management, Total Productive Manufacturing or even Teamwork between Production and Maintenance. Whatever the acronym stands for, the objectives of a cutting-edge TPM program are they same. TPM enables a company to:

• Increase output/productivity without increasing the size of its welding fleet
• Meet deadlines easier and avoid outsourcing welding
• Conserve capital or free it for other uses
• Increase profit margins (which in turn can enable pricing flexibility if necessary)
• Improve cross-functional teamwork and communication
• Empower associates to not just solve welding equipment problems, but also to eliminate the source of the problem

Three Types of Maintenance
Maintenance expert Ross Kennedy, president of the The Centre for TPM (www.ctpm.org.au), notes that there are three levels of maintenance: frontline care, technical maintenance and strategic maintenance¹.

On an engine driven welding generator, frontline care would be changing the oil and filters at recommended intervals. Technical maintenance would be having the engine drive serviced by a mechanic to fix a problem. Strategic maintenance is about minimizing maintenance costs. This could be through such actions as selecting the simplest, most reliable welding machines possible or standardizing your fleet on the fewest models possible (where component commonality reduces parts inventory and service training costs).