TPM, an Improvement in Working Culture

por José Luis Alvarado | Dec 18, 2021 4:34:02 PM

Total productive maintenance tequila industry casa sauzaTequila Sauza is a company with more than 140 years of experience in the production and distribution of Tequila in the world's market. Since its beginnings, it has been renowned by its global and innovative vision in the creation of the Tequila Denomination of Origin (DOT) and the processes that sustain it. Challenges have been presented when trying to maintain its global leadership in the commercialization of tequila, to which it has responded in a forceful way by creating a work culture based on TPM (Total Productive Maintenance).

What is TPM for Casa Sauza?

It is a management system based on the transformation of competitiveness and on the autonomy of the work team in order to achieve our business' goals by means of personal development, from the "Genba" (the floor) to the administration, applying the principles of best practices and continuous improvement "Kaizen".

Why Total Productive Maintenance?

It is an initiative that arose internally in order to optimize our operations space by changing the way we work, moving from a "make to stock" program to a "make to order" program. Facing this challenge, it was essential to us (and still is) to ensure the reliability of our equipment in order to guarantee the proper delivery of our products in a timely manner. After exploring several management strategies, we came to realize that TPM is the -proven- tool that we needed to achieve our goals.

How has the TPM culture developed in Sauza?

It starts by realizing that losses are taking place throughout the whole operating process, from the raw material to the consumer's final sale. This program is developed in three stages:

  1. Starts in the manufacturing process and
  2. it is extended to both suppliers and clients in order to create an impact
  3. on the final consumer of the supply chain.

Each stage takes an average of 3 to 5 years.

The deployment of program was progressive in Casa Sauza. It started in 2009 with a pilot team and a year later, it was extended to all of the teams that were critical to the process. Its implementation was based on the Security pillar and the 5S as its main support for the Autonomous Maintenance.

Many people think that it limits itself to the maintenance activities performed by the area in charge, which is a very limited approach since the real (and broader) objective of the program is the elimination of all losses throughout the whole organization. Autonomous Maintenance is only the development axis, which works along with: Planned Maintenance, Training and Education, Continuous Improvement, Development Management, Quality Maintenance of and improvements the in administration areas.

Which benefits are gained with this program?

By means of promoting an Autonomous Culture, we have increased the individual development and, by doing so, we have improved our use of resources and our company's competitiveness in the comercial, operating, social and financial areas. Sauza is considered a safe and great place to work at, our losses have reduced in a 45% while our productivity has doubled.

TPM implementation in organizations allows you to increase your processes and to continually improve all of the company's goals by means of using the right resources at the right time.

Find out more about our Work Philosophy and practices here:

Come and visit Casa Sauza and see for yourself how the modernization of our production processes delivers the purest tequila that you will find in the market. 

Click here for more information on Casa Sauza Guided Tours

 

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