The earliest roots of TPM trace back to the concept of Productive Maintenance (PM) that originated in the United States in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. American Productive Maintenance was characterized by development of scheduled Preventive Maintenance techniques to improve the reliability and longevity of manufacturing production equipment.* “What we now refer to as TPM is, in fact, American-style productive maintenance modified and enhanced to fit the Japanese industrial environment.” (Nakajima 1984) Twenty Japanese companies formed a PM research group in 1953 and in 1962 sent a research mission to the United States to observe American Productive Maintenance. This effort further led to the creation of the Japanese Institute of Plant Engineers (JIPE), the predecessor of JIPM in 1969. (Ireland and Dale 2001) Figure 1 provides an overview of the early milestones as TPM developed in Japan.