This is innovative approach of maintenance developed by Japanese manufacturers for their plants and machinery. In this concept the principle of all the above there methods are made use of. The ultimate objective of TPM is to develop an operational system which is maintenance free. In other words, maintenance prevention ( MP) is achieved through a combination of preventive maintenance (PM) and predictive maintenance action ( PMA). By this maintainability improvement ( MI) is achieved.

In the traditional approach when machine fails breakdown maintenance is carried out by replacing the defecting items. In TPM instead of waiting for a breakdown a small group carries out preventive maintenance on a selective basis. This process is also called condition based maintenance. The predictive maintenance concept is used to predict the conditions of parts being selected for preventive maintenance. This process leads to maintenance prevention ( MP) or ultimately maintenance free service ( MFS).