With the cost of energy/materials on the rise and consumer spending down efficiency plays a vital role in improving a plant’s production process to help sustain and surpass acceptable margins.

With this in mind the question now becomes, what can we “the plant” do to achieve the largest and quickest return on investment? The answer, OEE/DTM solutions or Overall Equipment Effectiveness complimented by a Downtime Management System.
By definition OEE is cumulative measure of three separate factors: Availability, Performance and Quality and together they can provide you with a good measure of how well your plant is producing. Such informaiton is critical when trying to determine benchmarking in order to improve your company’s production process.
OEE data is even more valuable when complimented by a Downtime Management System. A Downtime Management Systems (DTM) gives a company the the ability to collect and classify downtime data from the shop floor into meaningful information that can help managers understand the root causes of production inefficiency. Therefore giving greater visibility to make more informed decisions on process improvement.
The functionality provided by an OEE & DTM system includes:
OEE is a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can truly unlock the hidden potential of the shop floor. Worldwide, the accepted estimate for the average OEE level is between 45% and 60%; whereas truly efficient factories strive for a world class rating of 85%. The only way to reach that best-in-class rating is through process improvement and to get there your comapany needs the right tools. Using the information gathered form OEE/DTM systems will allow management to identify and prioritize specific problems so they can be monitored more closely. Once a clear idea of the problem is identified then a solution can be decided upon and implemented for the shop floor to increase efficiency.
Below is a list of benefits companies often see levering on the information provided by a OEE/DTM solution:
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In today’s world, more and more industries are striving towards a lean manufacturing environment. This means reducing waste, but in which area? Resource wastage can affect materials, assets or even personnel, but in which particular area do plants need to invest their efforts? This is the problem that many plants face today: “We need to reduce our resource waste, but where do we start?”
The solution can be found by using an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Downtime Management (DTM) System. By definition OEE is cumulative measure of three separate factors: Availability, Performance and Quality. Availability is the measure of the time spent producing against the time available for production; performance is the ratio of actual production rate against target production rate; and quality is the ratio of good product against total product.
Downtime management refers to the ability to collect and classify downtime data from the shop floor into meaningful information that can help managers understand the root causes of production inefficiency.
OEE and other associated metrics, such as mean time between failure and mean time to repair, allow plants to make better decisions regarding where they need to invest their time and money in order to make improvements, thus unlocking the hidden potential that already exists on the factory floor.
Most of the inefficiencies in a plant can be attributed to the “Six Big Losses” shown in the figure below.
OEE and Downtime Management solutions will help identify and classify these losses while providing granularity via detailed downtime definitions and contextualization. Plants need more information than whether a machine is running or not; it is important to understand why the machine is not running.
Downtime Management can provide the exact reason for a machine stop as well as how long it was in this state, if it the status was planned and if this status is related to other statuses. Contextualization for each of the problems can be determined on both a macro and micro scale using context information like shift, order, material, production line and machine. Problems identified on the macro scale can be further detailed on the micro level by examining the context of the information.
For example, a manger notices that the OEE performance rate on a production line is beginning to drop. Examination of the downtime information shows that one machine is being stopped by periodic small jams. These jams take 15 seconds of operator intervention to solve multiple times during a shift and over the course of a shift add up to fifteen minutes of lost production time. With this information maintenance can be scheduled for the very next downtime to bring production back up to full speed. All of this data enables the factory staff to improve on areas that cut production costs, improve on-time delivery and manage downtime to increase output/productivity and quality.
Worldwide, the accepted estimate for the average OEE level is between 45% and 60%; whereas truly efficient factories strive
for a world class rating of 85%. To reach a world class rating a software solution that provides clear real-time information combined with a continuous cycle of improvement is required. An effective OEE solution supplies real-time information and transparency into the production process to facilitate effective management decisions as well as provide the shop floor with the monitoring tools it needs to immediately identify inefficiencies.
OEE is a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can truly unlock the hidden potential of the shop floor. Management should use the information it collects to identify and prioritize specific problems so they can be monitored more closely. Once a clear idea of the problem is identified then a solution can be decided upon and implemented for the shop floor to increase efficiency.
Afterwards the cycle of data collection begins again. After each repetition on the improvement cycle the plant’s OEE rating should increase until the target goals and world class manufacturing status are achieved.
Hyla Soft offers solutions that address the three primary functions of OEE: Acquisition, Analysis and Visualization.
Acquisition
Analysis
Visualization
Hyla Soft USA OEE-DTM solutions make it possible to capture all the necessary data,
apply the right aggregation, and provide user interfaces for the visualization/analysis of OEE-DTM data. Hyla Soft consultants are well versed in OEE and Downtime management and can analyze plant processes and conceptualize OEE-DTM solutions.
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