OEE and Human Effort

I was recently asked to consider a modification to the OEE formula to calculate labour versus equipment effectiveness.  This request stemmed from the observation that some processes, like assembly or packing operations, may be completely dependent on human effort.  In other words, the people performing the work ARE the machine. I have observed situations where an extra person was stationed […]

Killer Metrics

Managing performance on any scale requires some form of measurement.  These measurements are often summarized into a single result that is commonly referred to as a metric.  Many businesses use tools such as dashboards or scorecards to present a summary or combination of multiple metrics into a single report. While these reports and charts can be impressive and are capable […]

OEE: Planned Downtime and Availability

As a core metric, Overall Equipment Effectiveness or OEE has been adopted by many companies to improve operations and optimize the capacity of existing equipment.  Having completed several on site assessments over the past few months we have learned that almost all organizations are measuring performance and quality in real-time, however, the availability component of OEE is still a mystery […]

Pivot Tables, OEE, and Differentiation Strategy

Automated systems are great at creating data and generating reports but they don’t always give us what we’re looking for.  Microsoft’s Excel Pivot Tables provide an amazing ability to create and generate custom reports on the fly and it’s easier than you may think.  Could this be a differentiation factor for how your company works with OEE data versus others […]

Differentiation Strategies and OEE (Part II): The Heart of the Matter

An article published in Industry Week magazine comprises part of our pursuit of differentiation strategies and OEE.  This will serve as the topical element of our post for today. Enjoy the article, OEE:  The heart of the matter, and we’ll provide our thoughts and insights as well.  If the above links do not work, you can copy and paste the […]

Lean, OEE, and How to beat the “Law of Diminishing Returns”

Are your lean initiatives falling prey to the Law of Diminishing Returns?  Waning returns may soon be followed by apathy as the “new” initiative gets old.  For those who have not studied economics or are not familiar with the term, it is defined by Wikepedia as follows: The law states “that we will get less and less extra output when we add additional […]

Software Modeling for Standardized Work

The concept of Standard Work is understood in virtually any work environment and is not exclusive to the lean enterprise.  Typically the greater challenge of standardized work is actually preparing an effective document that adequately describes the “work” to be performed. The objective of standardized work is to provide a documented “method” for completing a sequence of tasks that can be […]

Using TRIZ for Problem Solving – Introduction

Using TRIZ for Problem Solving – Introduction A famous quote from Albert Einstein, “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.“, applies to the discussion of problem solving and more so to the topic of TRIZ, The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, developed by Genrich S. Altshuller. TRIZ – Theory of Inventive Problem Solving […]

Time Studies with your BlackBerry

Performing a time study is relatively easy compared to only few years ago.  The technologies available today allow studies to be conducted quite readily. Time Studies and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) The Performance factor for OEE is based on the Ideal Cycle Time of the process.  For fixed rate processes, the Name-Plate rate may suffice but should still be confirmed.  For other processes such a […]

How to Solve Problems with Idea Maps

Problem solving is a problem in itself for many companies and at times can be one of the most daunting tasks to undertake during the course of an otherwise regular work day. For some, problems seldom occur while for others this may, unfortunately, be a daily activity.  Since problem solving is not usually part of the typical daily agenda of “routine” activities, our ability […]