In a recent pharmaceutical-client implementation we led, Overall Equipment Effectiveness increased from 32% to 53%.
The line’s top three causes of downtime fell from 151 hours to 10 hours. Corrective-maintenance downtime on the pilot asset declined by 70%.
Those are not forecasted savings or an illustrative scenario. They are measured results documented in a peer-reviewed study of the pharmaceutical API-plant implementation. The client remained anonymous in the published research.
| Measure | Baseline | After implementation | Measurement detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Equipment Effectiveness | 32% | 53% | 21-point increase after the TPMR program |
| Top three downtime modes | 151 hours | 10 hours | Measured during the four months after TPMR introduction |
| Corrective-maintenance downtime | Baseline period | 70% lower | Reported for the pilot asset |
| Planned-maintenance duration | 67 hours | 45 hours | 33% reduction in planned-maintenance time |
What improved OEE from 32% to 53%?
The pharmaceutical line improved OEE by combining Total Productive Maintenance with reliability engineering, using actual downtime data to target recurring failures, redesigning maintenance work, training the people closest to the equipment, and creating clearer ownership of equipment health. The improvement came from changing the operating system around the asset—not from demanding more firefighting from the same experts.
What is OEE?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, shows how effectively a manufacturing asset produces good output during scheduled production time. It combines three factors: availability, performance, and quality. The score helps leaders see whether capacity is being lost through downtime, reduced speed, defects, or a combination of all three.
An OEE score is useful only when the losses beneath it lead to action. Treating OEE as a scoreboard without changing daily work simply gives the organization a more precise view of the same problem.
The implementation started with the losses that mattered most
The team did not begin with a generic maintenance checklist. It examined shift data and a 12-month downtime history to identify the failures consuming the most production time.
Three recurring problems rose to the top: an oxygen analyzer, a door-locking assembly, and lubrication oil. The response included the correct maintenance intervention, targeted training, an overhaul of the door assembly, and vendor training for operating and repairing the analyzer.
That focus matters. TPM is often weakened by launching too many activities across too much equipment before the organization has proved where the largest losses actually live.
The better sequence is:
- Select the asset that constrains output.
- Establish a trustworthy OEE baseline.
- Rank the losses using real downtime data.
- Correct the maintenance and capability gaps behind the largest losses.
- Build the new responsibilities into daily work.
Maintenance work was redesigned—not merely increased
The program integrated Total Productive Maintenance with Reliability-Centered Maintenance, creating what the researchers called a TPMR framework.
Instead of treating every task and failure as equally important, maintenance work was prioritized using equipment criticality and failure evidence. The team rationalized the maintenance plan, reduced unnecessary activity, and focused technical resources where their expertise created the most value.
The pilot’s planned-maintenance duration fell from 67 hours to 45 hours. That reduction is important because pharmaceutical maintenance can require additional shutdown, cleaning, strip-down, reassembly, and validated return-to-service work. Poorly designed maintenance consumes far more production time than the repair alone.
Operators and technicians need different ownership
Low OEE often persists when operators run the equipment, technicians repair it, and the early warning signs between those roles have no clear owner.
Autonomous maintenance closes that gap. Operators take responsibility for appropriate routine equipment care: cleaning, inspecting, tightening, lubricating, and identifying abnormalities while they are still small.
That does not turn operators into maintenance technicians. It protects technician capacity.
When routine care and early detection live at the line, skilled technicians can spend more time on reliability engineering, recurring-failure elimination, planned work, and root-cause corrections—the work that requires their training.
You do not find more experts by burying the existing ones in daily emergencies. You multiply their impact by designing a system that uses their expertise where only expertise will do.
Daily management keeps the improvement from becoming an event
In our work, the ownership shift is sustained through daily management rather than a one-time TPM launch.
A 10-minute tiered huddle at the line gives each shift a fixed rhythm for three questions:
- What broke?
- What is drifting?
- What do we fix today?
The purpose is not to hold another meeting. It is to catch abnormal conditions early, assign ownership, escalate what the line cannot solve, and keep yesterday’s small problem from becoming tomorrow’s major breakdown.
OEE becomes useful when it connects the asset-level loss to that daily decision-making rhythm.
The larger lesson: reliability is an operating system
The 21-point OEE improvement was not created by a motivational campaign or another dashboard. It came from a structured operating change:
- the most important losses became visible;
- maintenance work was redesigned around evidence and criticality;
- training addressed specific capability gaps;
- operators gained appropriate ownership of routine equipment care;
- technicians were directed toward higher-skill reliability work; and
- daily management created a repeatable response to drift.
That is the difference between an organization that depends on a few exhausted heroes and one that builds reliability into the way the line runs.
What this case proves—and what it does not
This was a single-site pharmaceutical API case centered on a pilot asset. It should not be treated as a guarantee that every plant will move OEE by 21 points or reproduce the same results on the same timeline.
It does demonstrate that a disciplined TPM and reliability model can materially improve equipment performance in a regulated pharmaceutical environment. It also shows why organizations should pilot the system on a meaningful asset, measure the actual losses, and prove the operating model before scaling it across the site.
Frequently asked questions
How much did OEE improve in this pharmaceutical implementation?
OEE increased from 32% to 53%, a gain of 21 percentage points. The implementation also reduced the top three downtime modes from 151 hours to 10 hours during the four months after TPMR was introduced and reduced corrective-maintenance downtime by 70% on the pilot asset.
What is TPMR?
TPMR combines Total Productive Maintenance with reliability engineering and Reliability-Centered Maintenance. It joins operator ownership and proactive equipment care with criticality analysis, failure-mode thinking, maintenance optimization, and technical root-cause work. The objective is not simply to perform more maintenance; it is to perform the right work at the right level.
How long did the pharmaceutical pilot take?
The peer-reviewed study reports that the TPMR framework and centrifuge pilot took 12 months to develop and deploy. The reduction in the top three downtime modes was measured during the four months following TPMR introduction. A credible implementation timeline should distinguish initial improvement from full system development and sustainment.
Can TPM work in pharmaceutical manufacturing?
Yes, but it must account for the industry’s quality, cleaning, documentation, validation, and equipment-release requirements. The case demonstrates TPM in an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant while integrating reliability engineering and the additional availability constraints created by maintenance cleaning and equipment reassembly.
Where Incito fits
We install the operating discipline behind this work: OEE-based loss analysis, autonomous maintenance, reliability engineering, maintenance optimization, training, and the daily-management system required to sustain improvement.
Learn more about Total Productive Maintenance and Maintenance Excellence or schedule a consultation to identify what your most important line is really producing—and where its capacity is being lost.
Sources
Shannon, N., Trubetskaya, A., Iqbal, J., & McDermott, O. (2023). A total productive maintenance & reliability framework for an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant utilising design for Lean Six Sigma. Heliyon, 9(10), e20516.
My pharmaceutical OEE video, August 14, 2026, 2 minutes 52 seconds: watch on YouTube.