Jishu Hozen (Autonomous Maintenance): The 7 Steps in TPM

Meaning

What does Jishu Hozen mean?

Jishu Hozen is Japanese for self-maintenance. In TPM it is the JH pillar, one of the loss-reduction pillars shown below. JIPM describes TPM as overall maintenance that aims at zero losses and involves every function, not only maintenance; Jishu Hozen is where that principle reaches the operator.

The reasoning is practical. Operators are with the equipment every shift, so they are the people most likely to notice a leak, a noise or a loose bolt first. Maintenance staff keep their time for work that needs their skills. The pillar changes who does what: operators own basic care. See planned maintenance in TPM for the other side of that split.

Autonomous maintenance definition and Jishu Hozen full form (JH)

Jishu Hozen is Japanese: 'jishu' means autonomous or self-directed and 'hozen' means maintenance or preservation, so the term is usually rendered as autonomous maintenance or self-maintenance. It is abbreviated JH, and in English-language material AM. The JH pillar, the autonomous maintenance pillar and Jishu Hozen all refer to the same TPM pillar. Its primary goal is for the people who operate the equipment to keep its basic conditions (clean, lubricated, tight) and to find abnormalities early.

Autonomous maintenance compared with preventive maintenance and with TPM

Operators own basic care and maintenance owns scheduled work; autonomous maintenance vs preventive maintenance sets out who does what and how often.

Seven steps

What are the 7 steps of Jishu Hozen?

The seven steps of Jishu Hozen are: 1. Initial cleaning. 2. Contamination sources and hard-to-access places. 3. Cleaning, inspection and lubrication (CIL) standards. 4. General inspection. 5. Autonomous inspection. 6. Standardisation. 7. Full self-management. Each step ends with a step audit; the right-hand column is the evidence to ask for before declaring a step complete (Figure 2).

The Jishu Hozen staircase

Seven steps, each closed by a step audit before the team climbs to the next

1. 0PreparationPurpose, safety training, model area, baseline, tag rules

1. 1Initial cleaningShoki seisoStep audit
2. 2Sources and hard-to-access placesHasseigen konnan-kasho taisakuStep audit
3. 3CIL standardsJishu hozen kari-kijunStep audit

Steps 1 to 3 Restore basic conditions

1. 4General inspectionSotenkenStep audit
2. 5Autonomous inspectionJishu tenkenStep audit

Steps 4 to 5 Inspection skills

1. 6StandardisationHyojunkaStep audit
2. 7Full self-managementJishu kanri tetteiStep audit

Steps 6 to 7 Autonomous management

Japanese names as taught by JIPM; each tread ends at a step audit gate

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Each step has a working guide with the checks and evidence to close it: autonomous maintenance steps 0 and 1, step 2, the CIL standard of step 3, steps 4 and 5 and steps 6 and 7. Figure 3 shows the same seven steps on paper and in MaintWiz.

Paper and digital Jishu Hozen

The same seven steps, different records

On paper	In MaintWiz
Tags written by hand and hung on the machine	Tag raised on a phone with a photo
Register kept in a spreadsheet	Register with owner, date and colour
Status chased by phone and in meetings	Overdue alerts to the owner
Monthly report assembled by hand	Dashboard by colour, area and month

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Is there a step 0 in autonomous maintenance?

Step 0 is preparation before step 1: the purpose, safety training, a model area, baseline photographs and the tag rules. Skipping it is a common reason programmes begin badly; score the model area on the readiness self-assessment before the briefing.

Tags and OPLs

How do abnormality tags and one point lessons work together?

Cleaning is only useful if what it finds is recorded and followed up. The common method is a tag on the equipment (red for abnormalities that need maintenance support, white for ones the operating team can fix and yellow for a case your site defines, written on the legend at the area) and an entry in a register with an owner, a target date and a closure. Red tag systems in TPM and 5S explains the method and gives a register layout. Operators call an abnormality fuguai and its tag an efuda; the seven types they look for are in Figure 6.

The seven types of fuguai

What operators look for while cleaning: fuguai means abnormality

• 1

  Minor flaws

  Dirt, wear, play, looseness

• 2

  Unfulfilled basic conditions

  Missing lubrication, slack bolts

• 3

  Inaccessible places

  Grease nipple behind a guard

• 4

  Contamination sources

  Seal leak, product spill

• 5

  Quality defect sources

  Worn nozzle, loose guide

• 6

  Unnecessary and non-urgent items

  Idle tools, spare fittings

• 7

  Unsafe places

  Exposed shaft, oily floor

Each find gets an efuda (tag) and a register entry with its type

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One point lessons

As operators move from step 4 to step 5 they need short, specific training. One point lessons are single-page sheets on one topic (how to check a chain, what a normal sound is) that fit this need.

How long

How long does autonomous maintenance take to implement?

Each step ends when its audit is passed, not on a date, and areas move at different speeds. A full TPM programme generally takes 2.5 to 3 years (Shen 2015). Take one model area through steps 1 to 3 first, review what was learned, then spread. Skipping steps to hit a date brings the programme back to firefighting, because the standards written at step 3 depend on what was found at steps 1 and 2. The MaintWiz roll-out of the records takes 6 to 8 weeks; each area then moves through the seven steps at its own pace.

How do you measure autonomous maintenance?

• Step status per equipment: which step each has passed and when.
• Tags raised and closed on time; average age of open tags.
• Share of CIL routines completed on the shift.
• Contamination sources removed against listed.
• Time taken for the routine, to check it fits the shift.
• Step audit scores.

What are the benefits of autonomous maintenance?

• Abnormalities are found earlier, while they are small.
• Operators understand their equipment better and report what they see.
• Maintenance time is freed for work that needs skill.
• Contamination sources and hard-to-reach places are fixed instead of tolerated.
• Standards, tags and audits give the area a shared record.

Software needs

What should Jishu Hozen software do?

MaintWiz keeps the operator loop moving in one AI CMMS: find, tag, register, assign, close and review.

• Tags in red, white and yellow, with the meaning of each colour set by your plant.
• An abnormality register with owner and target date, and tabs for open, closed, completed, auditee work completed, cancelled and non-conformance records.
• Operators see their own area's open items, and overdue alerts show what has passed its target date.
• A tag can be converted to a work order when maintenance work is needed.
• A dashboard of tag counts by colour, assigned, closed and completed records, cumulative and day-wise closure, contamination sources and hard-to-access places.
• Mobile capture: operators raise tags and records on a phone at the equipment, with a photo.
• Records in any script: MaintWiz supports Unicode, so operators write tags and notes in Hindi, Tamil or any other script; the menus are in English.

MaintWiz is an AI CMMS built for TPM. The MaintWiz roll-out takes 6 to 8 weeks, with easy Excel uploads and guided project management by the MaintWiz implementation team. See autonomous maintenance software, the TPM software buyer's guide, pricing or a demo.

Sources

Sources

• JIPM, About TPM https://www.jipmglobal.com/about/tpm/
• Shen, C.C. (2015). Discussion on key successful factors of TPM in enterprises. Journal of Applied Research and Technology 13(3), 425-427. https://elsevier.es/es-revista-journal-applied-research-technology-jart-81-articulo-discussion-on-key-successful-factors-S1665642315000371