Challenges

Equipment capacity is seldom exploited to full potential. Causes are unplanned standstills, intermittent stoppages, delays during equipment operation, faulty parts and an excessive reject rate. Despite high machine utilization the results in terms of quantity and quality are mostly below expectation.

The effect of this can be felt not only in the production department through added personnel and material costs, but also throughout warehouse logistic and in the entire fulfilment process of the company. The implementation of improvement measures is often based on gut decisions without any real ability to measure overall effectiveness.

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a measure of the overall efficiency of equipment. Causes for efficiency losses are hereby the primary focus aiming to pinpoint potential for production optimization and then to implement appropriate measures for better equipment control and operation.