Overall Equipment Effectiveness - VMware Factors to Consider
Overall Equipment Effectiveness can see at the total operation of one piece of device or an entire plant. Increasing the OEE level by as low as one percentage point can have deep effect on a plant’s outgrowth.
.The Power Of Overall Equipment Effectiveness
This is used to measure the standard loss within a production plant or process in a wide range of industries. Measuring Overall Equipment Effectiveness is a simple but powerful measuring tool for obtaining information about what actually happens in your plant. Overall equipment effectiveness is not the only indicator to assess a production system, but it is certainly very important if our goal is continuous improvement.
OEE is the product of three factors:
- equipment availability,
- equipment performance and
- equipment quality rate.
OEE is different from the simple calculation of the Efficiency of each Production Cycle and the overall Production Efficiency. It is a percentage derived by multiplying the three ratios for the factors mentioned above. OEE can be calculated as follows: OEE= Availability x Performance x Quality Rate [85% is considered world class]
Availability is –
The actual uptime of the process divided by the scheduled available runtime. It refers to the machine being available for production when scheduled. Availability accounts for the downtime impacting the line. Downtime refers to time when the machine should be running, but it stands still. Setups, changeovers, cleanup, preventive maintenance and other planned activities may also decrease productive asset availability. This downtime loss often includes substantial time spent making adjustments until the machine gives acceptable quality.
Performance is –
The speed at which equipment runs. Performance accounts for periods where machines are running at reduced rates. Performance Rate losses might include: reduced speed, minor stoppages, idling losses, and material feed problems. A low performance rate reflects speed losses
Quality is –
The measure of time wasted producing parts that do not meet quality standards. The quality rate is the amount of good products versus the total amount of products produced. A low quality rate reflects defect losses. A defect loss means that the equipment is producing products that do not fully meet the specified quality characteristics.
Applying OEE
On a larger scale, you should not only be calculating OEE on equipment, you should also be calculating it for entire production lines, facility-wide OEE and within across the whole company. Manufacturing performance improvements can only effectively be achieved through a planned approach to the monitoring and gathering of production information Some companies find OEE to be a useful tool for making critical business decisions such as: When to buy new production equipment; Which plants to ship orders to; or Whether some orders should be accepted at all. OEE is different from the simple calculation of the efficiency of each production cycle and the overall production efficiency.
Overall equipment effectiveness is not the only indicator to assess a production system, but it is certainly very important if your goal is continuous improvement. By giving your employees an easy way to see how well they are doing in overall equipment utilization, production speed, and quality, they will strive for a greater performance. The important thing to remember is that OEE focuses on fixing equipment not fixing blame. This perhaps the biggest difference from the old efficiency metrics which measure people factors. (labor costs).
The Waste factor
Looking at machine operation, we distinguish six types of waste we generally refer to as losses, because they reflect lost effectiveness of the equipment. Although the operator can easily correct these problems when they occur, the frequent halts can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the equipment. OEE forces you to focus on the six big losses – the gaps to improve the effectiveness of the equipment. These losses include:
- Breakdowns
- Setup and adjustment losses
- Minor stoppages and idling
- Reduced speed
- Defects and rework
- Startup and yield losses
Effect On Performance Improvement
Calculating the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) rate is a crucial element of any serious commitment to reduce equipment- and process-related wastes through total productive maintenance (TPM) and other lean manufacturing methods like Operational Excellence, Six Sigma or World Class Manufacturing. The OEE formula will show how improvements in changeovers, quality, machine reliability improvements, working through breaks and more, will affect your bottom line Overall equipment effectiveness is not the only indicator for assessing a production system, but it is certainly very important for realistic performance improvement. The Objective of OEE is to act as a simple but powerful measuring tool for obtaining information about how effective the current performance improvement effort is.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness can look at the overall performance of one piece of equipment or an entire factory. Raising the OEE level by as little as one percentage point can have profound impact on a plant’s bottom line. At a previous employer, we raised the plant’s OEE one percent from fifty three to fifty four and this contributed $440.000.00 directly to the bottom line.
Brice Alvord has over thirty years experience as an internal and external performance improvement consultant. He holds a BA in Sociology/Psychology from Central Washington University and an MBA degree from City University of Seattle. He is the author of over two dozen books on continuous improvement and training.