At Hidria, we are closing the business year with another important success - the TPM Award, which confirms excellence in the field of organization, management and control of production. With the recognition received by the team of the Hidria Advancetec business unit in Tolmin, Hidria ranks among the top three companies in Slovenia and only twenty companies in Europe with production organization at such a high level.
"Recognition primarily means confirmation of good five-year work in the field of TPM. I am glad that within the framework of the six TPM teams representing the entire production at Hidria Advancetec in Tolmin, we managed to build a TPM culture, that the level of efficiency improved despite many changes in our team, that the production managers took over and led the TPM teams and with therefore, they also developed as personalities, that the members of the management actively participated in the role of sponsors. Of course, I am also happy that the result of joint work is reflected in overall equipment effectiveness, record production volumes and employee satisfaction," said M.Sc. Rudi Kragelj, director of the Hidria Advancetec business unit.
The improvements introduced by Hidria's team in Tolmin over the past five years are not limited to maintenance, but rather a comprehensive production management approach based on lean production, continuous improvement and the involvement of all employees.
"Today, Hidria is a performance benchmark, an example of efficient production organization. Unlike the classic way of organizing production, which is often divided into separate fields, this division is no longer present in Hidria Advancetec. You can be very proud of that," says Miha Vedenik, director of the consulting company Lean solutions, which cooperated with Hidria in introducing the mindset and way of working according to the TPM methodology. "Perhaps the name of the TPM Award first of all really suggests that it is about improving efficiency indicators, reducing congestion, speeding up shifts, improving order and cleanliness. These are, of course, still the primary goals of the project. However, the great meaning of the project is also in changing the way of thinking and acting. The employees of Hidria Advancetec who led the TPM teams gained valuable management experience," he adds.
Miha BriĊĦar, HLS manager at Hidria Advancetec and coordinator of the TPM project says: "I think that in the project that brought us the TPM Award, the cooperation of employees from different fields is very important, who themselves recognize the challenges in production, agree on how to solve them, follow the set goals, and are interested in the course of the processes. It is also important that not only big changes count, but also the smallest improvements. The recognition we received proves that we managed to set up the project well and implement it in such a way that it became part of our culture, even though the pandemic overturned our plans and we had to start the work completely from the beginning."
Hidria Advancetec received the TPM Award by the International TPM Institute. The auditor Markus Koch, who has followed the development of the Hidria Advancetec project for the past five years, emphasizes: "The progress in the Hidria Advancetec business unit is exceptional. Some improvements can be seen, some can be measured, and some can only be felt. Already at first glance, we can see the structure, the leanness of the production lines, many small improvements. We can measure performance indicators. What we can only feel is the team spirit. In companies, it often happens that management, production employees, and maintenance workers do not talk enough. At Hidria Advancetec, they work as a team. The TPM Award is both a confirmation of how high goals the team is capable of achieving, as well as an excellent foundation for further business development. TPM is not just a program, it is a philosophy, and this is strongly present in the consciousness of the Hidria Advancetec team today."