Salalah en route to zero breakdowns

The Omani Port of Salalah has become the first port in the world to meet the requirements of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) consulting body, allowing it to officially begin a four-year process towards becoming a zero-breakdown port.

During a process launch ceremony attended by Port of Salalah’s management and initial TPM team members, twelve machine team leaders explained how they tackled the poorest machines at the container terminal such as a crane with a monthly average of 14 failures or more than 300 abnormalities.

To reach the crucial process launch milestone the teams were required to demonstrate how the TPM framework was applied to machines to achieve zero breakdowns and to sustain this over a period of no less than five months. Transforming six machines from having the highest breakdown frequency to zero breakdowns was achieved in ten months, effectively reducing average breakdowns by 72% which in turn increased mean time between failures by 223%.