Question

What is overall equipment effectiveness?

Answer
By Art Maat | Published: August 1, 2017
Presented by Nektar Data Systems

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a metric used in manufacturing to measure productivity. OEE gives you an idea of your equipment’s performance, quality output, and downtime.

Get Your Measurements

OEE is a percentage calculation that you can solve using three other calculations:

  • Equipment availability: What percentage of planned run time is actually utilized?
    • Equipment availability = (Planned run time – downtime) / Planned run time
  • Product quality: What percentage of products created meet quality requirements?
    • Product quality = (Number of products made – number of rejected products) / Number of products made
  • Performance: How well is your equipment running?
    • Performance = (Total number of products made / Actual run time) / Ideal run rate

After determining these three factors, you can find your OEE by multiplying the three results together, or by using the following simplified formula:

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left: 20px;">OEE = (Number of quality products x Ideal cycle time) / Planned run time

Keep in mind that ideal cycle time and planned run time should be in the same unit. So if your ideal cycle time is one second, make sure you convert your planned run time into seconds instead of having it in minutes or hours.

What Is a Good OEE?

Ideally, OEE is as close to 100% as possible. 100% OEE isn’t likely because that would mean you are producing at your ideal rate with perfect quality on every part, with zero downtime. Obviously you will have some downtime whether it is planned or not, for things like maintenance and malfunctions. It is also normal and expected to have quality and performance losses such as product defects and idling time loss.

Why Use OEE?

Calculating your overall equipment effectiveness can help you to see where your manufacturing process is lacking, whether it be a performance, quality, or availability loss. OEE can help uncover the root causes of flawed productivity and point you in the direction on how to increase your overall productivity.

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Written by Art Maat | President & CEO

Art Maat
In his founding role as President & CEO of Nektar Data Systems Art is responsible for supervising the products and services that the company offers. His area of expertise centers around the evangelism of industry best practices for data and asset management initiatives. He actively consults executive and operations level management of customer and partner companies.

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