The Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC) has started the roll-out of a Total Productive Management/Maintenance (TPM) programme in South Africa’s component sector.

TPM is used as a tool to improve global competitiveness, explains AIDC enterprise and supplier development department manager Nkumbuzi Ben-Mazwi.

“TPM is a lean manufacturing tool that teaches companies to do business in a world-class manner. It aims for zero accidents, breakdowns, defects and losses within the manufacturing process.”

The first batch of 30 local TPM facilitators was trained in Pretoria by the Japan Management Association (JMA) last week.

The JMA consists of JMA Consulting (JMAC) and the Japan Institute for Plant Maintenance, which provides assessments and awards based on the TPM system.

More than 2 800 global manufacturing sites have, to date, been named TPM award winners, with just under 700 of these in the automotive industry.

The JMA was established in 1942 to support increased efficiency in the Japanese manufacturing industry.

JMAC’s Dr Uttam Kumar Chatterjee, with a doctorate in manufacturing excellence and 26 years experience at Unilever, was in South Africa to provide TPM training to facilitators from select companies.

“These facilitators will now become ambassadors and trainers at their companies in TPM, and will soon depart on a study tour to Japan,” says Ben-Mazwi.

He says TPM has had positive results in other automotive manufacturing countries, such as India, and that South Africa can also benefit from the programme.

The TPM programme has been introduced to five South African component suppliers in the AIDC’s initial roll-out phase.

The five companies include ZF Auto Industrial and Autoliv. Non automotive manufacturers have also been included, such as Marley Pipe Systems.

“Our mandate is still to develop automotive companies, but we also work with other Gauteng manufacturers to improve their competitiveness,” says Ben-Mazwi.

The TPM programme runs until April 2014.

“We want the automotive industry to tell us whether they have the appetite for a second round. It they want it, the AIDC will facilitate it.

“We can double the intake for the next TPM round to ten companies.”

The TPM programme is managed by project manager Rickus Lubbe and senior project manager Bianca Jagger from the AIDC, and forms part of the AIDC’s larger supplier efficiency programme.

The project is funded by the Gauteng government’s Gauteng Growth and Development Agency, through the AIDC.

The AIDC in the Eastern Cape is also running a TPM cluster.