Development and Implementation of Autonomous and Preventive Maintenance in the Rubber Area of a Cork Industry

The project described in this paper was developed in a rubber area of a cork company, where maintenance activity was weak or non-existent. The main objective was to implement a maintenance philosophy, based on the principles of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). The methodology adopted was based on action-research. The autonomous maintenance (AM) and preventive maintenance (PM) plans created and implemented are described and the results are presented considering the number of intervention requests and the availability of critical equipment before and after the implementation. Intervention requests were reduced by 40% and the availability of critical equipment increased with this project due to an efficient implementation of TPM principles.