Top 10 OEE manufacturing benefits that improves your production

There are plenty of reasons why OEE is used as a tool for continuous improvement at companies around the world. These are the top 10 greatest advantages and benefits it provides.

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a framework for measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of a manufacturing process, and these are the top 10 advantages.

1) Return on Investment (ROI)

Companies make large investments in machinery and need to achieve the maximum return on their investment. As an operator, you are able to prove the financial value of your investments with measurable data provided by the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and other hard metrics. If users can produce 10 percent more product in the same amount of time using the same equipment, they’ve made an appreciable and measurable contribution to the company’s bottom line.

2) Get the best performance from the machinery

One of the biggest benefits of using an OEE system is that the performance of machines increases rapidly from the time of implementation. Its application is perfectly suited to both obtaining the maximum performance from the new equipment of the production line, and implementing it to other machines that are already working.

3) OEE works and speaks for everyone

Information provided is targeted to every level of the production process: from the shop floor team right up to the top-level management. OEE information is insightful and triggers teams to improvement action. For shop level teams it fosters group problem solving and healthy competition among teams. It also enables top-level management to focus on areas that will yield the greatest returns.

4) Helps increase competitiveness

It is essential to reduce production losses and achieve greater competitiveness. For example, if a production line is capable of making 100 pieces per hour, but is only producing 60, it is not efficient enough. With the hard OEE data in hand, operators are able to identify constraints in the production line. With a cloud-based OEE-system, you can identify where your weaknesses are and where your opportunities are by analyzing the OEE metrics data.

5) Insights into the unknown of your production

Only what is measured can be managed and improved. The live data visualization of the equipment status provides the knowledge to reduce unplanned downtime and speed up planned stops. Analysis of the correlation between performance and performance loss (e.g. small stops and slow cycles) reveals potentials for maintenance improvements leading to lower costs, reduced material consumption, and greater equipment availability.

6) Visualize performance in simple terms

OEE visualizes performance by taking the most recurrent and important sources of productivity losses, assigning them into three important categories of availability, performance, and quality, and then filtering them into a single metric that shows you where you currently stand and how to improve.

7) Discover ‘The Hidden Factory’

Usually, real process efficiency is much lower than is assumed. Uncovering this fact called the ‘The hidden Factory’, is the first step to improving industrial productivity.

8) Reduce machinery repair costs

Knowing the actual performance of the machinery goes hand-in-hand with knowing whether or not the machine is working properly, or whether there are issues that

may lead to the need for future repair. Having an OEE-system that is able to anticipate these events (analyzing unexpected shutdowns, reduced speeds, etc.) represents a major saving in both preventive maintenance of machinery, as well as in the high costs associated with the failure of the machine itself.

9) Great scalability

You can start using an OEE-system on a single machine or process and continue to expand its implementation until it is employed across multiple production plants. This scalability means it becomes a very versatile system, one that can be adapted to any company, regardless of its size.

10) Start your Digital Factory with DIAP

The first and most important step if you want to improve the OEE of your production is to integrate a system that can monitor your machines. The OEE extension available with our DIAP platform will enable you to determine the existing OEE of your production and to identify areas of improvement. The DIAP gateway collects data from PLCs, industrial sensors, and industrial robots. The data is securely stored in the cloud. You can access, monitor, and analyze the collected data in real-time using the DIAP dashboard. The DIAP app lets you receive critical alarm notifications.