Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture? As my daughter would say, “It looks like a hot mess!” If your answer resembled my daughter’s comments, you would be correct. The ideal answer would be the fact that this equipment has broken down, which has resulted in three hours of down time and counting. I should also note that each minute of non-production has a premium loss of about $700/min for this nice little sold out business. If you are in charge of this little “jewel of manufacturing,” you are probably getting a lot of unwanted attention from your boss. You would need to figure out how to get the equipment operational again, but most importantly, how to make sure this situation never happened again. So, what should be your first step? You should form a kaizen team to do a three month black belt project, Right? WRONG!!

1. Back to the Basics: How do you Establish and Maintain The
Basic Condition of Your Equipment?
Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture?
As my daughter would say, “It looks like a hot mess!” If your answer resembled my
daughter’s comments, you would be correct.
The ideal answer would be the fact that this equipment has broken down, which has
resulted in three hours of down time and counting. I should also note that each
minute of non-production has a premium loss of about $700/min for this nice little sold
out business. If you are in charge of this little “jewel of manufacturing,” you are
probably getting a lot of unwanted attention from your boss.
You would need to figure out how to get the equipment operational again, but most
importantly, how to make sure this situation never happened again. So, what should
be your first step? You should form a kaizen team to do a three month black belt
project, Right? ​WRONG!!
Step one is to get the mess (broken equipment) under control by restoring it to basic
condition and completing the required mechanical repairs. What does it mean to
restore the equipment back to basic condition?.......Good question! Let me break it
down for you. (pun intended. Lol!)
Basic machine condition is the expected good state of repair that equipment should
possess in order to produce quality parts in a timely manner.​[1]​ ​Typically, when people

2. think of restoring equipment to basic conditions, they believe that simply cleaning the
equipment is sufficient. However, to restore a piece of equipment to basic condition
effectively requires a little more effort than that. The true value comes when there is an
understanding of the equipment placement and control variable settings that keep the
equipment running as designed. In the application of TPM, the “Theory of Operation”
is the tool that can be used to capture this level of detail and truly define basic
conditions for your equipment. In the next section we will explore the details of the
Theory of Operation and it is value.
Theory of Operation
The Theory of Operation is a tool that is used to define basic conditions by answering three
critical questions at the transformation points on a piece of equipment. ​Note​: (The
transformation point is the place where the equipment changes or has action on the
product/material passing through it). These questions are referenced to a diagram or picture of
the equipment to provide visual support in explaining the equipment characteristics. The
questions are as follows:
1. What is the Idea Sequence of the Movement?​ This question requires an explanation as
to how the product/material is moving through the equipment
2. What are the required conditions for each movement?​ This question requires an
explanation as to the position of the equipment and its overall physical state as the
product/ material moves through it. This information is ​specific ​and ​quantitative​. ​USE
NUMBERS OR VISUAL CONTROLS​ to denote the correct position. ​DO NOT​ use words like
appropriate, adequate, general, etc to describe these settings.
3. What are the Operating Settings?​ This question requires an explanation of the control
settings of the equipment as the product/material moves through it. Again, make this
information ​specific​ and ​quantitative​. ​DO NOT​ use words like appropriate, adequate,
general, etc to describe these settings.
The answer to these questions are obtained by using a combination of the equipment vendor
records and the experience of the people that operate and maintain the equipment on a
consistent basis.

3. Click the picture below to access an example of a Theory of Operation on
OpExApps.
The ​Theory of Operation​ tool should be use for the follow 2 activities primarily:
1. To focus the activity of defining ​Cleaning, Inspection, and Lubrication (CIL)​[2]​ ​standards.
These standards will give details on how to keep the equipment in basic condition​.​ The
standards are then to be paired with an activity schedule so that the CIL task can be
managed by the Line ​AM​ team. The ​Theory of Operation​, ​CIL​ standards, and ​AM​ ​[3​]
Calendar are 3 key deliverables during the restorative steps of the equipment’s ​AM
journey.
2. To answer the question of ​“How​ the equipment differs from ideal state or basic
condition,” when executing the 5W2H tool, you can use a ​root cause analysis​ or Kaizen.

4. Now that the basic conditions have been defined and you have created your ​CIL​ standards and
AM calendar there is one more key component to ensure that the basic conditions are
sustained……You Guessed It! A robust defect ​tagging system​ will help you to ensure that
situations that arise like this in the future will be handled rapidly and efficiently.
Defect Tagging
During the course of completing the activities per the ​AM​ calendar, the team will inevitably find
that the equipment is now longer in basic condition per the CIL standards. The ​tagging system
is a way to systematically prioritize and restore the basic conditions in a timely fashion. A
robust ​tagging system​ ​should have the following characteristics:
1. Be instantly accessible at the point of defect
2. The ability to be completed in less than thirty seconds with minimal data entry required
3. The ability to capture pictures as a way to provide detail about the defect and its
resolution
4. The ability to communicate the defect information instantaneously and track it to
completion
5. Automatic linkage to a tag register which shows the status of each tag
6. Automatic calculation of all of the key tagging metrics as defined by TPM methodology
OpExApps, INC​ ​has created a tag management system that does all of this and it can be
accessed from your smartphone. Click on the link below to access the
http://www.opexapps.com/​website. Sign up for a demo of the ​Tag Management System​ ​and a
system for ​Root Cause Analysis​ or become a beta tester today.
Click picture below!

5. Summary
In summary, the restoration of the equipment back to its basic condition is the first preventive
action that should be taken following an equipment breakdown. The Theory of Operation is a
tool that is used to defined the equipment’s position and control variable settings as the
equipment transforms the product. In order to sustain these conditions, CIL standards need to
be defined and a schedule needs to be provided to the team to define when the CIL activities
are to be completed. Finally, a robust defect tag management system is needed to ensure any
defects against the standards will be fixed in a timely manner.
About the Author
Patrick T Anderson ​ ​is a leader and practitioner of Continuous Improvement in manufacturing
with over 18 years of extensive experience. During this time, he has trained, coached, and
audited hundreds of people on Lean Methodology and led teams to deliver millions in hard
savings to the companies he has served. Patrick is the founder of OpExApps, INC. in which he
has taken his passion for programming technology to develop systems to make the application
of continuous improvement simpler and more efficient. Patrick is an alumnus of ​Florida A&M
University​ and ​Xavier University​, from which he obtained his B.S. Chemical Engineering and
MBA degrees respectively.
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[1]​ ​http://www.toolingu.com/definition-900150-11789-basic–condition.html
[2]
https://kaizenrms.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/establish-basic-machine-condi
tion/
[3] http://leanmanufacturingtools.org/438/autonomous-maintenance/