Time is money.

The ability to grow with the demand of the market allows your bottom line to grow as well. OEE stands for the “overall equipment effectiveness”. This metric helps you to see just how good your equipment is running. Allowing you to see where changes can be made if there are any to be made.

Oee makes sure that your equipment will be running at the highest possible efficiency, making you money!

What is OEE and how is it measured?

How close to 100% are you?

Every production machine starts the day with planned production time. In this time, the level of production that this machine can do will be estimated and measured. The OEE of the machine is how well this machine did, and how close to 100% the machine was. The less downtime that the machine is the more time the machine is producing products.

The OEE is a direct measure of how efficient the machine was at producing products, looking at asset availability, asset performance, and production quality.

The formula for measuring OEE is quality x performance x availability = OEE.

In order to run an OEE assessment first, you need to know the availability. You can find this by measuring total time divided by the total planned time. For example, if a machine was estimated to run for 10 hours but only ran for 9 hours, the availability would be 0.9 or 90%!

It is estimated that many production lines are only around 60% effective!

Why is OEE used?

OEE is considered the gold standard for productivity.

The numbers gathered through an Overall Equipment Effectiveness test help you to know more about the product availability, performance, quality, and production!

A 100% availability means that the production ran the entire time it was scheduled to do so. A 100% performance rating means that when the production line was running it was running at its’ optimal speed without slowdowns or stops. A 100% rating on quality means that only good quality parts are being produced and there were minimal to no defects or part reworks. Finally, a 100% OEE rating means that the production line is only producing good quality parts, without slowdowns or stops… it’s optimally effective!

OEE can be figured out using the formula above, but it can also be tracked and figured out with computer software.

OEE Software

Why do it yourself when you can have a computer do it for you.

So, if you’re wondering “what is OEE software” it can be used to measure, compare and watch multiple different production lines. The best part is that unlike a traditional pen and paper you can watch your business numbers fluctuate in real-time.

By using an OEE software package you give yourself the ability to benchmark your rate of OEE as well as track your daily usage numbers. This can be useful not only to look at your own numbers but also to look at other industry numbers so you can compare yourself to the competition and see if there is anything that you need to work on in order to be more competitive in the market.

First Time?

Are you just figuring out your OEE for the first time?

Creating a digital overall equipment effectiveness sheet is easy and can be done in no time. First, it’s smart to start with a single test or pilot that only manufactures one part or multiple in the same general amount of time. This gives you a good starting value to use. After this, you need to find your constraint. A constraint is a step or machine that is your limiting value or the thing that will slow down production.

Finally, it’s important that if this is your first time trying to calculate oee, try to do it with a pen and paper, and if your numbers match with the numbers that the computer puts out you know that you have set up your OEE correctly!

OEE: Don’t Forget to Find

OEE only needs three different pieces of information, good count, ideal cycle time and planned production time.

Good count refers to parts that come out defect-free the first time through production. If you are doing this manually it’s important to have a counter set up immediately so you don’t miss any production time, and if this is being done digitally a sensor will be needed to keep track of your good quality parts.

Ideal cycle time is theoretical in nature and is the minimum time expected to produce one part. It’s very important that you are honest with the time it takes to produce a part because if you undersell or oversell your capabilities your ideal cycle time will show the differences. If there are problems with a product, equipment or materials be honest about those problems or again you will see the difference in the numbers.

Planned production time is the total time that manufacturing is scheduled for. If you need to know where to start, it’s advised to start with shift time, and include any planned stop times. An important thing to note is that most companies exclude breaks, lunches, and meetings in this.

Of course, if you are overwhelmed just reading about overall equipment effectiveness you can use oee software to help. It’s easier than ever to make sure that you are on top of your business’s efficiency, timing, and production.

Every plant runs a little differently, but the numbers will never lie, it’s important to track all your metrics so you can continue to grow!

Let’s Be Effective

An oee of 85% is considered world-class!

It’s important to learn your businesses’ oee numbers so that you can see if there are any changes that need to happen. It’s possible for you to find things that have fallen between the cracks or have been underperforming. Growth can happen at any stage of your business, but your business will only grow if you are keeping track of your daily production. An oee of 60% is an average, but anything below 40% is considered to be a slow oee and would need to be improved.

You work hard, and by tracking your oee you make sure that your hard work is paying off, literally and figuratively.