Leverage OEE Expertise to Optimize Production Performance
You can’t improve upon what you can’t measure. And having made a large investment in your industrial automation machines and processes, we understand that you want to achieve the maximum return on that investment and have continuous availability of reliable equipment with precision performance. Leveraging OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) Live Automation can help you achieve both goals by uncovering your hidden factory – a place of optimal performance where reduced lead times and improved production quality are realized through OEE calculation.
OEE Calculation
OEE is the gold standard for measuring manufacturing productivity and is critical to executing real-time and long term manufacturing improvements. Before OEE software is implemented, real process efficiency is often much lower than assumed. To gain a more realistic and comprehensive view, OEE is implemented to monitor the actual performance of a tool, station or facility relative to its performance capabilities under optimal manufacturing conditions (basically, it identifies the percentage of manufacturing time that is truly productive). An OEE calculation considers 3 factors:
- Availability (A). Is the machine operating or not? An Availability score of 100% means the process is always running during Planned Production Time. Losses that would affect this score are equipment failures, unplanned maintenance, material shortages and changeovers.
- Performance (P). How fast is the machine running? A Performance score of 100% means that when the process is running, it’s running as fast as possible. Losses that would affect this score are the result of machine wear, substandard materials and misfeeds.
- Quality (Q). How many products met the specifications? A Quality score of 100% means there are no Defects (only Good Parts are being produced). Losses that would affect this score are defects or parts that require repair.
OEE = AxPxQ
A perfect OEE score (100%) means that you are manufacturing only good parts (Quality), as fast as possible (Performance), with no stop time (Availability).
Benefits of Calculating OEE
OEE is much more than a tool for fine-tuning production operations. It is also serves as a resource for operations, engineers and executive management in developing a long term strategy for continuous improvements. While production issues can often times be complex, the power of OEE is its ability to transform those complexities into easy to understand information. Implementing OEE software also supports:
- Faster Return on Investment (ROI)
- The objective of OEE is maximum return on investment since its implementation is high. The payback on calculating OEE can be extremely fast.
- Increased Competitiveness
- Let’s face it, you have competition both domestically and internationally. OEE is another weapon in your arsenal to achieve higher quality and throughput than your competitor.
- Maximized Performance from your Machinery
- One of the biggest benefits of using an OEE system is calculating machine efficiency. With OEE the performance of machines increases rapidly from the time of implementation. Its application is perfectly suited to both obtaining the maximum performance from new equipment on the production line, and to implementing it to other machines that are already running.
- Improved Process Quality
- Some of your biggest financial impact to your bottom line could be quality. OEE can help identify the root causes of your quality issues and Live can help implement fixes and improvements.
- More Informed Decision Making
- Do you know what the top 5 downtime reasons were on Line 2? Why is the line running 20% less on second shift? OEE will help you capture and analyze critical data so that you can make informed decision and take rapid action.
- Communication Between the Shop Floor and the Top Floor
- With reliable real-time information, plant personnel can be aware of how they are really performing, which enables the activation of immediate improvement actions across all management levels. OEE provides information on the detailed origin of production losses - the starting point from which to improve plant productivity.
- Reduced Repair Costs
- Performance of the machinery goes hand-in-hand with knowing whether or not the machine is working properly, or whether there are issues that may lead to the need for future repair. Having an OEE system that is able to anticipate these events (analyzing unexpected shutdowns, reduced speeds, etc.) represents a major savings in both preventive maintenance of machinery, as well as in the high costs associated with the failure of the machine itself.
- Scalability
- OEE is versatile, allowing you to start with one machine then roll out to the entire process or facility.
How Can We Help?
By leveraging your existing SCADA and automation investment, we can layer intuitive software tools on top of your controls network to achieve a cost-effective OEE solution. Ready to uncover your hidden factory? Call us at (866) PLC-GUYS and let’s talk about calculating OEE and improving the efficiency of your manufacturing.