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Published on April 23, 2008

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation

After decades in Thailand, Unilever Thai Holdings has succeeded in capturing many segments of the consumer product market. In almost all the segments, the company is among the top three, with its products available in every mall and almost all traditional shops.

But to stay on top sustainably, it is not enough to be satisfied with business success. The company has to ensure effective internal operations and high potential human resources.

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), an international industrial standard, is Unilever's solution.

TPM is an industrial standard from Japan, created by Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM). The standard aims at maximising efficiency of all working processes and human resources and reducing losses from all causes.

TPM differs from other standards as it starts from the bottom up - from the individual worker up to the management level. This makes it easy to maintain the standard throughout the organisation while other standards are implemented from the top down, making them difficult to maintain, Pracha Pokthitiyuk, manufacturing director for home care at Unilever Thai Trading, said. Unilever Thai Trading is an affiliate of Unilever Thai Holdings.

"Joining TPM is like changing the whole organisation culture from top executives to operational staff. We have to entirely change our mindset," Dr Viwat Krisdasima, vice president for supply chain at Unilever Thai Trading,  said.

"We focus mainly on people, which means developing human resources to ensure long-term sustainable growth and maximising satisfaction of consumers. We give all our staff freedom to propose ideas. We provide training and when workers show higher effectiveness, we move them to positions where they can maximise their talents. With the solution, the staff will be happy with their career progress and proud of themselves while Unilever can strengthen its success," he said.

The company started applying TPM in 1997 and focused mainly on improving efficiency in production processes in eight plants and reducing losses from all causes that can be prevented, such as by regular maintenance of equipment to prevent unexpected accidents. They have also got creative ideas from staff at the plant to adjust machines for higher production capacity. Two years after that, it won the first level of five levels of TPM - Award for TPM Excellence.

Then, it moved to maintain the working standard and further reduce losses at its plants. At this second level, its absenteeism rate caused by plant accidents was zero, earning the Award for Excellence in Consistent TPM Commitment. After that, it implemented TPM in its supply chain, purchasing and distribution units and won the third level Special Award for TPM Achievement.

In the fourth stage, it extended its scope to work with corporate customers such as Tesco Lotus and Carrefour to deliver goods in full compliance of requirements and in a timely manner, increasing punctuality rate from 80 per cent to 93.8 per cent. This reduces chances of business loss from having no products available on shelves at the supercentres and also reduces customers' claims on damaged packaging to almost zero.

It works together with the customers to analyse work processes and problems related to consumers' access to goods before helping the customers solve problems.

Today, Unilever is the only company in Asia to reach the fourth level. Its ultimate goal is to reach the highest level - Award for World-Class TPM Achievement - by 2010.

Unilever has also reduced production costs by up to Bt700 million since 1997.

It will have to maintain the current standards and further its working with about ten more suppliers, trading partners and corporate retail customers.

The practice not only improves long-term performance, but also helps the company survive unfavourable economic conditions, in which businesses have to shoul-der increasing costs and convince

customers to continue buying their products.

      At a glance

n The company earned the first level by improving efficiency in eight plants, reducing losses and increasing production capacity.

n It further reduced losses at its plants and cut absenteeism caused by plant accidents to zero to reach the second level.

n It implemented TPM with its supply chain, purchasing and distribution units and climbed to the third level.

n It earned the fourth level by extending TPM to dealings with corporate customers such as Carrefour supercentres, raising punctuality to 93.8 per cent and cutting claims on damaged packaging to almost zero.