OEE in Manufacturing Productivity

OEE enables the measuring of the overall efficiency of a machine or that of a whole manufacturing set up. OEE can have a large effect towards the productivity of a production system.  Implementation of OEE systems invariably improves the OEE score by up to 20% in the first year.  It has been shown that optimising the OEE of as little as one per cent enables a significant improvement in the production throughput and savings in the unit cost of the manufactured product.

The OEE score consists of 3 elements: Availability (A), Performance (P) and Quality (Q).

• Availability is the % of uptime of each manufacturing or plant asset
• Performance is the % throughput against a target
• Quality is the % of waste.

To get the OEE score, multiply Availability by Performance by Quality.

OEE to drive Productivity in Use

Overall Equipment Effectiveness is useful as a metric for directors of manufacturing.  At a high level OEE looks relatively simple, it can be {extremely, highly} involved to calculate in real world cases.  For this reason, specialist OEE software are required to acquire the data from each element of the manufacturing process and make the OEE calculation quickly.  Typically these systems are of a modular structure to give it maximum flexibility and allow it to fit with existing plant and data capture facilities and enterprise resouce planning system.

Once the data has been capture and processed, it is only of benefit if it can be converted into reports that are accurate.  OEE software from the main vendors gives a selection of reports that can be adapted and drilled down into, to enable the manager to find what they are focused on.

OEE is becoming as the foundation of lean manufacturing. By incremental improvements a production line can become more energy efficient, improve efficiency and decrease departmental silo-mentality as well as manage risk.  All production managers must comprehend the principles and practice of OEE and where it sits in the lean manufacturing philosophy as a vital force for productivity profitable manufacturing.