Total Productive Management

1.1 Preliminary remark
The goal of almost any company or service provider is the generation of profit in order to secure the companys market position, to expand and to fulfill the expectations of shareholders and employees. Even administrations and other organisations pursue a similar purpose by offering a special service on the market and using it successfully. There are certainly additional forms of companies, service providers, administrations and organisations but the main focus of the instruction in this book lies especially on those variations geared toward economic success.
Companies of all kinds are especially successful if they use their resources such as know-how, machinery and equipment, brands and patents and most importantly their employees with the greatest possible efficiency. Consequently, it is essential to utilise and make use of all of the existing potential consistently. Again and again, we see that only a few of the seemingly infinite number of companies in the world stand out for their excellence. Now, how did these companies achieve this special status?

Prof. Dr. Constantin May graduated in industrial engineering and management at theUniversity of Kaiserslautern and then became consultant at IDS Scheer AG, Saarbruecken.After working as research assistant at the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt,Prof. May obtained his doctorate for his work on operations management. Thiswas followed by a position as head of division at the Schaeffler Group, taking him also toSouth East Asia for prolonged stays. Since 1999, Professor May is now teaching productionmanagement and logistics at Ansbach University of Applied Sciences. He has beenthe head of the CETPM since its foundation in 2005.Peter Schimek is a graduate engineer in mechanical engineering, industrial engineering,and ergonomics. Between 1996 and 2003, he was employed as a plant leader in thefoods industry, successfully implementing TPM in this capacity. He received togetherwith his plant a number of JIPM-TPM Awards. Before that, he worked, for example, forMars Incorporated, USA, and gained experience as a manager in the roles of Chief IndustrialEngineer, Chief Engineer, Plant Manager, and General Manager in Germany, England,the Netherlands, Belgium, and Brazil. Mr. Schimek heads the "Awarding" divisionat the CETPM.