How to Calculate Overall Equipment Effectiveness?

The amount of an asset’s productivity may be measured using the key performance indicator known as overall equipment effectiveness. In the context of the manufacturing process, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a combination of three characteristics that tell you how efficient an asset is in terms of its availability, performance, and quality.

Each one may provide you with a unique piece of information on the functioning of an item.

  • Availability – is the asset running for the full duration that it’s been planned for it to run 
  • Performance – at what rate the asset is producing products 
  • Quality – How many things of a certain quality may be produced with this asset?

When an asset achieves an OEE of 100%, it indicates that each and every item it produces is free of flaws or perfect in quality, that it is generating at its maximum feasible speed and performance, and that it does not suffer any unexpected availability loss.

OEE Computation

The overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) formula is derived by multiplying the quality metrics by availability and performance, and the resulting value is expressed as a percentage.

Availability x Performance x Quality = OEE

The first step in determining an asset’s OEE is to determine its availability. The OEE calculation does not include scheduled shutdowns for preventative maintenance, special days, or other situations that are analogous to these. Determining availability may be accomplished by performing the calculation that divides the entire run time of an asset by the total anticipated production time of an asset.

For illustration, the availability of a computer would be 91.7%, if it was meant to operate for 12 hours but only operated and performed for 11 hours because it had a failure.

The next step in evaluating the effectiveness of an asset is to determine its maximum potential throughput and divide that number by the actual system throughput.

The last thing that has to be decided is the standard to which the asset produces its products. To determine quality, take the total number of units that were begun and divide that number by the number of usable units that were generated.

What Does OEE Stand for in Terms of Maintenance?

Carrying out an OEE analysis may offer valuable insight into how you plan, manage, and carry out maintenance work. Low availability of assets may indicate that a machine is breaking too often or for an extended period of time.

This might suggest that the asset is not receiving the appropriate amount of preventative maintenance or that crucial replacement parts are not readily accessible to allow for rapid issue resolution. In the end, the knowledge provided here may assist you in avoiding frequent and essential problems with assets that might cost your business both time and money.

Low productivity may be an indication that there is a problem with a particular component of the computer or the machine, and it requires the necessary precautionary repair to be performed. For example, the bearings may not be getting enough lubrication, or the belt may be too old and need to be changed.

Failures in the processes involved and an absence of uniformity are often the causes of low-quality scores. For instance, a more significant number of flaws might result from readings that aren’t adjusted correctly from shift to shift or from a system that isn’t aligned consistently between each usage, resulting in more problems.

What is World Class OEE

The precise inputs and several other considerations into the computation determine how “World Class” is defined. It is a relative number, and the acceptable value for “World Class” OEE is pushed upwards as competition and expectations grow. Many authors and businesses provide world-class OEE in a variety of various ways.

Include your team’s definition on the control plan as well as the data collection plan. Because when working to improve OEE, using a consistent and standard definition is of the utmost importance. This holds for every metric definition for which there is more than one industry-accepted formula to choose from.

Complexity may be caused by several variables, including variable speed machines, components that can operate at varying speeds on separate machines, and “planned” scrap, which can be done. At the same time, an engine is tuned in, warming up, or learning constraints.

However, just like any other measure, it must be created with a crystal clear grasp of the variables, their meaning, and the many judgments that might arise from using it. As the Project Manage, you are responsible for ensuring that the statistic in question will result in the most optimal overall judgments.

Although there isn’t a single indicator that can describe production, efficiency, and waste, this is a creative effort to do so. These three categories cover a wide range of activities and need further clarification for an OEE value to provide accurate and insightful data.

It is possible that the term Overall Production Effectiveness would be more accurate because all of these elements, namely personnel and components, directly impact OEE in most circumstances.

Ways to Improve OEE

It’s self-evident that enhancing the efficacy of the equipment as a whole will need improving any or all of the elements. Because being aware of the aspects that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the equipment enables adequate planning, which in turn allows for the reduction of process inefficiencies and losses in a proactive manner

  1. Minimize failure of essential equipment, or more broadly, any unforeseen downtime that might cause a significant drop in availability is referred to as “unplanned downtime.”
  2. Quicken the process of setting up and adjusting.
  3. Reduce the time spent idling and stopping for less significant reasons.
  4. Occasional hiccups in production that don’t need a full stop but might add unwanted minutes to the total production time

To maintain all these essential points you will need an effective OEE improvement plan.

Final Words

During the production phase of a product, one helpful method for determining how productive certain assets are is known as overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE. The overall equipment effectiveness offers an excellent basis for determining areas of an operation that it may improve and a measurable means to monitor progress when it is used in conjunction with the knowledge provided by other maintenance metrics.


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