What is the difference between six sigma and TPM?
They are both management concepts with the former normally associated with lean manufacturing and quality, the latter with maintenance efficiency. Car manufactures like Toyota are the largest users of these management tools. If you want to do six sigma, or lean six sigma, or TQM (total quality management), or TPM (total productive maintenance). One key issue with all these tools is the use of the wrong tool to solve a problem or the use of a single tool to solve all problems. To be effective these tools have to be treated as philosophies that need to be adopted throughout an organisation before they can become fully effective and can be complex to implement. In my view they only really work well in large volume businesses but some can be applied to any business.
