OEE and Morale

Is employee morale impacting your OEE?  If so, how much of a concern is it?  As we wrote in one of our recent posts,  “Perhaps the greatest “external” influence on current manufacturing operations is the rapid collapse of the automotive industry in the midst of our current economic “melt down”.  The changes in operating strategy to respond to this new crisis are bound to have an effect on OEE […]

OEE Measurement Error

How many times have you, or someone you know, challenged the measurement process or method used to collect the data because the numbers just “don’t make sense” or “can’t be right”? It is imperative to have integrity in the data collection process to minimize the effect of phantom improvements through measurement method changes.  Switching from a manual recording system to […]

Improving OEE: A Hands On Approach

We have explored Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) from several perspectives and how it can be used as an effective performance metric.  The purpose of measuring and monitoring OEE, at a minimum, should be three fold: To ensure the current performance levels are sustained, To identify new opportunities for improvement, To assess the effectiveness of current improvement initiatives. The Culture of Continuous Improvement and […]

Availability and OEE

What is Availability? In its simplest form, availability measures the uptime of a machine or process against the planned production time.  As one of the factors of Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), Availability is expressed as a percentage.  The uptime is calculated by taking the difference between the planned production time and total duration of the downtime events that occurred during the planned production period. We […]

Variance, Waste, and OEE

Variance is Waste. Variation and OEE are complementary metrics that need to be considered together.

Problem Solving with OEE – Measuring Success

OEE in Perspective As mentioned in our previous posts, OEE is a terrific metric for measuring and monitoring ongoing performance in your operation.  However, like many metrics, it can become the focus rather than the gage of performance it is intended to be. The objective of measuring OEE is to identify opportunities where improvements can be made or to determine whether the changes to your […]

OEE for Multiple Parts – Single Machine (Multipart Processes)

How to Calculate OEE for Single Machine and Multiple Parts. Flexible manufacturing provides the advantage of producing many different parts on the same piece of equipment.  The same is true for processes such as stamping presses, molding machines, or machining operations. The first question most often asked is, “How do we calculate OEE for a piece of equipment that is capable of manufacturing multiple […]

OEE and Standardized Work

Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE):  Standardized Work After you start collecting OEE data for your processes, you may notice significant variance between departments, shifts, and even employees performing the work.  Of the many aspects that you will be inclined to investigate, standardized work should be one of them. Making sure that all employees are executing a process or sequence of processes […]

Practical OEE – How To Calculate and Use Weighted OEE

We have presented the methods of calculating OEE for a process and also demonstrated how weighted OEE is calculated for multiple processes.  Our next challenge is to determine how this data can be used to make sure we are targeting the right processes for improvement. Over the next few posts, we will show you how to calculate weighted OEE factors for each process.  […]

Weighted OEE: How To Calculate Total Plant OEE

In this post we will present a simple method to calculate a truly weighted OEE, including weighted factors Availability, Performance, and Quality. The QUICK weighted OEE method: Recalling our original definition of OEE, we are measuring how effectively our planned production time (net available time) is used to make a quality (saleable) product.  The weighted OEE then is the total time […]