Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is critical for any manufacturing operation. It provides manufacturers with insight into the performance of their operations and processes, allowing them to identify areas where improvement is needed.
To ensure the business’s success, manufacturers must understand how OEE impacts their daily operations by measuring equipment productivity and improving operational efficiency.
In this complete guide on how to improve OEE in your manufacturing process, we’ll cover the factors of OEE, why it’s so important for businesses, and some key best practices companies should use when striving towards continuous improvement concerning improving OEE scores.
Three Factors of OEE
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), is an important metric in manufacturing operations. It measures the performance of a specific machine, system, or line relative to its maximum potential. When assessing OEE, the three main factors to consider are availability, performance, and quality.
Availability measures how much time a machine has been available for production compared to how much time it was theoretically capable of running in that period.
Performance looks at how quickly the expected amount of product was made.
Quality examines how much-wasted product there was due to defective parts or rework.
Optimizing all three elements can substantially increase the efficiency and profitability of the operation.
Benefits of Improving OEE on Manufacturing
There are several benefits of improving OEE on manufacturing, some of which include:
Gives Production Insight
Measuring your production processes is essential to real insights and understanding their performance. Only sometimes, manufacturers underestimate how inefficient their processes are, assuming they’re running smoothly without taking the time to measure.
Be aware of a false sense of security – with proper measurements; you might be able to spot costly performance losses or take advantage of opportunities to optimize efficiency and reduce waste.
Understanding efficiency issues helps you target these to get the most out of your production process by identifying areas where improvements can be made.
Taking the time to measure available resources, throughput, and efficiency issues can save costs in the long run and help keep operations running smoothly.
Return on Investment
Organizations can be confident in their investments in machinery and equipment with OEE. This calculation allows them to demonstrate precisely how much money they get from their investments.
With data on overall equipment effectiveness, factories can produce nonpoint where to allocate their financial resources for maximum efficiency and assess how well new machines are functioning.
As a result, operators don’t have to guess the monetary value of their assets; with tangible information directly from OEE calculations, it’s plain as day. As long as these tools remain accurate, organizations will have all the info they need to prove the value of their investment.
Visualizing Performance
OEE is a great way to quickly assess your facility’s performance and get an idea of what needs to be improved. With just three values – availability, performance, and quality – you can easily evaluate how your operation is doing and plan what modifications need to be made.
Furthermore, the single metric created by these values allows us to overview all production areas in one glance comprehensively. In other words, OEE is an invaluable tool for assessing our manufacturing operations with remarkable accuracy and efficiency.
5 Ways to Improve OEE in Manufacturing
1. Assigning a Digital Champion
A digital champion is a key individual committed to ensuring overall efficiency (OEE), as well as any changes that are needed to increase it to increase profitability and efficiency.
An effective digital champion will advocate for technological changes and help everyone understand how they affect their day-to-day work.
They will also research, analyze and benchmark OEE to create action plans for improvement. Above all, they should encourage collaboration between different departments, managers, and teams to truly get the most out of any changes made.
2. Implementing Cross-Functional Daily Review and Discussion Sessions
Implementing cross-functional daily review and discussion sessions can be a practical approach for manufacturing operations striving to boost OEE numbers. During these meetings, teams can come together to analyze performance metrics, discuss successes and pinpoint areas for improvement.
This allows collaboration between teams to disclose problems that may otherwise go unnoticed. Productivity progresses when information flows openly among departments such as production, engineering, quality control, and supply chain management.
Through candid conversations about weak points in the process, manufacturers can identify opportunities for optimization and engage with stakeholders to put successful resolutions into action.
Overall, this level of communication gives workers an avenue to effectively increase uptime which is essential for any organization to reach high levels of OEE.
3. Automating Data Collection and Reporting
In recent years, improving the overall equipment efficiency in manufacturing has been the goal of many companies. Automating data collection and reporting is one of the best strategies to achieve this improvement.
With a dedicated OEE software for manufacturing that records everything from production numbers to product quality, personnel can identify specific areas for process optimization quickly and accurately.
Moving away from manual data collection and reporting provides a platform for greater visibility. It ensures personnel are working with up-to-date information to make informed decisions about operations.
Utilizing automated processes allows for continuous monitoring of production output and offers valuable insights into ensuring your production processes match your performance goals.
4. Commenting on all Production Stops
One of the best ways to improve your OEE score is by actively commenting on all production stops on each machine’s shift log. This will allow you to accurately track issues and how length and frequency are affecting your machine performance.
Focusing on understanding loss causes, duration, and frequency will provide insight for process improvement initiatives, allowing for increased efficiency and better quality standards that improve overall operational excellence.
5. Use Root Cause Analysis
This strategic problem-solving method can uncover why OEE performance may be lacking, allowing you to develop solutions that get to the heart of the issue rather than simply addressing the symptoms.
Conclusion
OEE is a hugely important metric for assessing manufacturing productivity and performance.
By evaluating past and current performance records, interviewing personnel, and asking ‘why’ to investigate problems more deeply—root cause analyses provide organizations with tangible data and actionable insights which enable them to make smart decisions that improve their operations over time.
With its ability to identify sources of inefficiency and waste, root cause analysis is an invaluable addition to any manufacturing improvement plan.
