TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) - TPM's Three Principle Theory: Don't just think at your desk, Go to the shopfloor first!

Focus on the Essence!

When something goes wrong, it is always important to think "Why is that so?"

But only relying on thinking will not solve anything. Let's find out the essence of the 3 principles' point of view.

There is always a cause for a breakdown and/or quality defect.

If you do not focus on the three principles, process (actual site) where actual breakdown/defect happened, part (actual thing) where actual breakdown/defect located, phenomenon (actual mechanism) where actual breakdown/defect composed, you can not judge what is the real cause.

This 3 principle theory (Sangen Principle) is a way of thinking with primal focuses on 3 realities (actual site, actual thing, and actual mechanism). Without focusing on these 3 realities, you can not catch the essence of problems.

For instance, a person in charge may make a decision only by listening to the situation about a defect that has occurred in the production site.

Under this circumstance, incorrect instruction may be given to the operators.

As a familiar example, an air conditioner has suddenly stopped, and the repair order was given without seeing the actual condition and without specific detail. For example: the order was simply "Need to repair the air conditioner."

Following this, the repairman comes and checks the air conditioner, finds out the battery of the remote controller has run out, or the plug just came out.

It might be an extreme (and simple) example, but isn't a similar issue happening at your workplace as well?