Lesson 8 of 20 · Chapter 8
TPM in Administration and Support Functions
A plant can do everything right on the floor and still lose time in a way that feels unfair: the line is ready to run, but the system is not. The seal kit is on backorder. The right tooling is not at the machine. A technician spends the first hour of a planned shutdown in the storeroom, then on the phone to purchasing, then fitting a substitute that “should fit.” This chapter shows that the office, the storeroom and purchasing are part of the production system, and that they have losses of their own.
Choose how you want to learn
You can change this any time. Every level does the same hands-on steps. Press Listen on any part to hear it read aloud.
- 1 · The line is ready
- 2 · Parts by risk
- 3 · The office’s six losses
- 4 · Intake, triage, approval
- 5 · Readable flow and closure
- 6 · Try it at work
- 7 · Your card
- 8 · Check yourself
Part 1
The line is ready; the system is not
Purchase orders, approvals, stock counts and schedules look like normal office work. But when they go wrong, the machine stands still, just as if a sensor were dirty.
Listen for the office version of “it’s acting up”: “we always have to expedite parts,” “that supplier is always late,” “we never know what we have in stock.” Those are normalised abnormalities too.
The first step is to name the problem precisely. Not “parts were late,” but which part, for which machine, promised when, arrived when, and what it cost in downtime.
The chain runs straight into the six losses: breakdowns last longer when parts are unavailable, setups run long when change parts and documents are missing, and startup losses grow when spares, lubricants and tooling are not ready when the line is.
When planned maintenance is truly planned, the job packet has a kitted parts list, verified stock and a clear trigger for purchasing when stock falls below its reorder point. If a kit cannot be built, that is known days ahead, not discovered at the machine.
“Modern TPM insists that this is not “just office work.” It is part of the production system, and it can create losses as surely as a misaligned sensor or a dirty photo-eye.”
“Instead of “parts were late,” capture: which part, for which asset, for which failure mode, what promised lead time, what actual lead time, and what downtime or schedule impact resulted.”
“When a planned maintenance job begins with a scavenger hunt, the schedule is already slipping, and the technician is already being trained to rush.”
Read the whole chapter free in the book reader.
The first hour of a planned shutdown. Switch on each office fix and watch the hour change. The minutes are an illustration.
Part 2
Spare parts are reliability controls
Not all parts are the same. Cheap parts used often (filters, belts, sensors, grease) cause many small stops when they run out. Expensive critical parts (a gearbox, a drive, a special bearing) cause long breakdowns and panic buying.
So parts are managed by risk, not by habit. And the storeroom matters too: a seal kit missing one O-ring arrives at the machine already broken.
One more rule: never order “something similar.” That quietly creates three versions of the same part, and normal stops meaning one thing.
Rushed sourcing of critical parts invites the wrong part, poor documentation and maintenance-induced variation. One of the quickest wins is standardising components, the theme of early equipment management: unique parts turn the spares cabinet into a museum.
Procurement therefore treats part numbers, approved alternates and specifications as quality-critical conditions. Cleanliness, labelling, first-in first-out, correct storage and kitting accuracy are not housekeeping; they decide whether a part is still good when it reaches the machine.
“A practical TPM-aligned logistics system starts with classifying parts by risk, not by habit.”
“Procurement, in a modern TPM system, must therefore treat part numbers, approved alternates, and specifications as quality-critical conditions.”
“Cleanliness, correct labeling, FIFO discipline, correct environmental storage, and kitting accuracy are not housekeeping.”
Six spare parts. Which kind of risk does each one carry?
Part 3
The office has six big losses too
The same six losses you learned in Lesson 2 happen in the office, just with paper instead of steel.
A breakdown is a work order that cannot be done because the job is unclear. Setup is typing the same information into three systems. Minor stops are all the waiting: for a signature, an answer, a budget. Defects are wrong part orders and duplicate work orders.
This is not about making office people work faster. It is about removing the conditions that make them chase, redo and improvise.
Speed loss in the office is slow transactions, not because people are lazy but because the process forces them to hunt and interpret instead of execute. Startup losses appear after changes: a new approval workflow or a new system field that people fill in differently until “we figure out how to work it.”
Lean Office is not about treating people like machines. It applies the disciplines already built since Chapter 2 to administrative work, choosing a few administrative “assets” and treating them like a bottleneck machine.
“It is the recognition that administrative processes have their own versions of the six big losses, and when those losses are ignored, the shop floor pays for them in exactly the ways TPM is trying to eliminate.”
“We are trying to make the office predictable by removing the conditions that force people to chase, rework, and improvise.”
Six things that happen in the office. Which of the six big losses is each one?
Part 4
Intake, triage and approvals
Intake: a good work request says which asset, where, what you can see or hear, any safety or quality risk, and a photo. When the request is vague, every step after it pays.
Triage: a quick daily check that sorts requests. If everything is marked “urgent,” nothing is planned. That is the office version of bypassing an interlock.
Approvals: a $40 belt should not need five signatures. Give trusted people a spending limit and a list of approved suppliers, so approval protects the plant instead of delaying it.
Every time a work request is returned for clarification, count it as rework, just like a defective part. A good intake standard is short but specific, and it must keep the evidence operators were trained to capture instead of stripping it away.
Too many approval steps behave like untested interlocks: they feel safe but invite bypassing. People learn to label everything urgent, route around the system, or “just buy it” and fix it later in accounting. Classify approvals by risk, and standardise decision rights.
“When intake is weak, every downstream step pays: planners chase details, technicians arrive unprepared, parts are guessed, and the job either fails or turns into a longer stop.”
“Without rules, everything becomes urgent, which is the administrative version of bypassing an interlock.”
“Low-risk MRO purchases should not require a chain of signatures that takes longer than the repair itself.”
Three office decisions. Choose what TPM would do.
Part 5
Make waiting visible, and close for real
In many offices, jobs wait in hidden queues that nobody owns. People ask “where are we on that?” all day because nobody can see.
A simple board everyone trusts shows each job’s real state. And each state means something exact: “waiting parts” means a purchase order with a confirmed delivery date, not “someone thinks they are coming.”
Finally, a job is closed only when the machine is back to baseline, it has been checked, and the lesson is written down. Not when it just runs again.
If no one can see the real backlog, priorities become arguments; if no one can see which jobs wait on parts or approvals, shortages and approvals become invisible downtime. If the board is inaccurate, people rebuild shadow systems in spreadsheets and email, and the plant has several versions of the truth.
Kitting exposes office defects that were hidden: a missing O-ring is now visible at the machine. Each kit defect is treated like a quality defect: what was missing, why, and what change prevents it. If closure is weak, the plant keeps paying tuition for the same lesson. The bench below follows one job through the office.
“Start with the most common administrative failure mode: the hidden queue.”
““Waiting parts” must not mean “someone thinks parts are coming.” It must mean the purchase order is placed with a confirmed delivery date, or the kit is partially staged with a documented shortage.”
“If closure is weak, the plant will keep paying tuition for the same lesson.”
The Work Order Flow Bench. One planned job on the bottleneck, followed through the office.
Part 6
Try it where you work
Do these on a real machine: at work if you work with equipment, or at home on a car, washing machine, furnace or lawn mower if you do not. Tick each one when it is done. Safety first: look and clean only what you are allowed to touch, never reach into moving equipment, and follow your site’s lockout rules.
Part 7
Your “My Work Request” card
Fill this in the next time you ask maintenance or the office for something. Nothing you type here leaves this device.
My Work Request
Global Sovereign University · Modern TPM, lesson 8
The office flow
- Intake with evidence
- Triage by rules
- Approval by risk
- Parts kitted, shortages known early
- Schedule frozen
- Closed: baseline verified, learning captured
The line is ready; is the system? Name the office abnormality precisely. Never order "something similar."
Part 8
Check yourself
Six real situations. Pick what you would do. You will see why after each one.
Lesson 8 complete.
You can now see office work as part of the production system, manage parts by risk, spot the six losses in paperwork, and follow a job all the way to real closure. Next: Lesson 9, the role of data in modern TPM.
Modern Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) by Dr. Gene A Constant. This lesson comes from chapter eight. Read the whole book free in the reader, or keep a copy.
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