Choosing an OEE system
April 30, 2009 by david.evanson
I’ve recently been following the Elsmar.com Forum for manufacturing improvement and there’s a post on there asking what to consider for an OEE data capture system. Having spent some time responding i’ve decided to be lean and use the same content on my blog! Let me know what you think!
Oh a quick thought (i’m writing this after finishing everything else!) - here’s an idea of what an OEE system should be: “A good data capture system is simply a robust resource allocation tool”. Whatever you do it should lead directly to people doing something differently as a result of using the data. Now you can probably ignore everything else i’ve written below…and feel free to read on!
If i may offer some advice it would be in the following areas:
1. Identify where the constraint is in your process
2. Identify the measure that not only tells you the extent of the constraint, but what the contributing factors to loss are
3. Understand the metric, automate it and train people thoroughly. Get their buy in and support.
4. Establish a robust management review methodology based on the metric - hence the need for automation; an automated process frees up your management team to fix the losses not spend all their time calculating them.
1. Identify the constraint:
If i may offer some advice it would be to help identify what your objective for recording the data might be. Whatever you choose to record i would recommend that it measures the constraint in your manufacturing process. If your constraint is a mechanical one - i.e. to produce more produce you just need to run a machine more/get less stops then OEE is a great measure for you. If however, your constraint is relieved by hiring more people, or more generally your constraint is labour based then i would steer you towards more of a man hour / tonne type metric. By the way an XL800 System can measure both very easily - how would you like a real time £/tonne measure displayed on the factory floor?
2. The correct measure:
The value to OEE is not that you get an OEE number. You’ve made what you’ve made - there’s little point in reviewing it. I visit so many sites that can tell me their OEE but can’t tell me where their losses are. The value to measuring OEE is in the categorisation of loss. If you know the loss you can apply the right tool to fix.
E.g. for OEE:
3 Loss: Quality, Performance, Availability
6 Loss: Speed, minor stops, major stops, quality in process, quality on startup, planned downtime.
If you have a planned downtime loss apply smed techniques. If you have a minor stop loss apply kaizan blitz techniques. The value is not the OEE number - it’s the collection and categorisation of the loss that counts!
3. Understand and train:
There are 2 main schools of thought on the collection of OEE data. One is the manual school that says it’s better for operators to collect so that they understand and you get the ‘real losses’. The other is the automated school that says it’s better to get the correct data and then work out the real losses later.
An automated system only ever tells you symptoms for your downtime - its diagnostics are only so good as the signals you give it. That said, how often has an operator identified the real root cause for a stop - 9.9 times out of 10 they’ll note down a symptom.
My personal belief is that it’s better to use an automated system that captures your losses accurately…and then use management process and review to drill down. Manual data systems like the ones you’ve listed take a lot of work to maintain and i have yet to find one that’s accurate to >60% simply due to the nature of human data capture.
Therefore i sit firmly in the second school and am capable of installing a system that correctly identifies loss on canning/bottling/packing lines running at >30,000units/hour to accuracies of over 98%.
The message here is again back to objectives - what do you want to achieve. Whichever root you choose involve your teams. I remember installing a system in a bottling plant in which the operator came up to me and said “this is crap, all crap. I’ll show you - i’ll find all the problems with your system”. It was brilliant! He was the best snagger i’ve ever met. I just took all his feedback and fixed it all. After a month he had to admit the system was good because he’d commissioned it for me! Now stop him from training everyone else on ‘his system’!
4. Robust process:
A system is ONLY so good as how it’s used. You could spend £10 or £180,000 on a system. If you don’t use it you’ll get the same result and the same payback.
We often support people to establish robust internal processes for using the data, documenting the actions that arise from interrogating the data, and then a management review process for driving change. Typically this looks as follows:
1. 24hr daily reviews - looking at 24hr data. Objective is to identify what actions are still open, see if we have any reoccurring issues, assign resource where needed.
2. 4hr Short Interval Control - a regular review (initially at 4 hr intervals, moving to 2) with front line management and engineers. 1st objective is to identify greatest loss from last window of time and ensure closed off. 2nd objective is to identify what needs to be done differently in the next window of time based on the data currently available.
3. A variety of strategic review - looking at trended data for maintenance, engineering, planning, forecasting etc.
Remember - your level of payback is directly related to how you use the data.
So what OEE system works? Whichever one you commit to using fully. My advice would be to look beyond a software download as i think you may struggle to use it fully simply as it’s reliant on manual data collection. That said, i’ve created and implemented several of these in the past on sites performing at between 25-40% OEE and got great results.
Also if you’re running at <45% my belief is that you don’t need to spend a fortune collecting data because you’re line is down for 4 hours in every 8. People know where the issues are because they’re in them! But when you head up into the 65%+ territory you’ll struggle to continue improving without robust automated data capture.
Measure your site: OptimumFX in Works Management
April 24, 2009 by david.evanson
This months Works Management contains an article on Performance Measurement featuring our very own Adrian Pask.
The article by Marek Szwejczewski from the Cranfield School of Management (Director of the Cranfield Best Factory Awards) printed in April’s edition of Works Management. Is particularly useful if you’re thinking of benchmarking your plant against another in your sector or even within another industry.
Starting on page 16 Marek investigates the measures that best identify the true performance of a plant, from OEE to employee engagement.
As recognised experts in the field of operations measurement Marek called on OptimumFX’s Adrian Pask to share views on performance measurement KPI’s.
You can read Adrian’s contributions on pages 17 and 18.
To download a completely free electonic copy of the April edition of the magazine please click here: DOWNLOAD FOR FREE
Once you’ve read the article on pages 16,17, and 18 please feel free to:
CALL US: +44 121 447 8520
EMAIL US: enquiries@optimumfx.com
TYPE IN YOUR COMMENTS BELOW
Plan for improving OEE with XL800 OEE System
April 21, 2009 by david.evanson
What results can you expect to get in free trial of our XL800 OEE System?
To help answer that question we have recently created a planner that you can use with your teams when you start your free trial of the XL800 OEE System.
Our intention here is to equip you with the tools necessary to get the system installed and operational as quickly as possible by engaging the key stakeholders in your site with some really clear objectives and accountabilities.
Please feel free to let me know what you think.
1. Click here to download as a pdf
2. View as an image:
Post on OEE that caught my eye
April 13, 2009 by david.evanson
I just had this article on OEE hit my google alerts and think you may enjoy the authors thoughts on the pros and cons of OEE measurement.
What’s interesting for me is that whilst he acknowledges the power of electronic capture systems the article is very much based on manually calculated OEE.
See what you think:
The Good and Bad of OEE
David Berger, P.Eng., Contributing Editor to Plant Services, PlantServices.com
David Berger, P.Eng., contributing editor, says overall equipment effectiveness is a powerful, meaningful metric if youre aware of what it excludes.
Becoming an OEE Fitness Instructor
April 5, 2009 by david.evanson
What do OEE improvement and the gym have in common?
- They both involve training people to carry out activities which in the short term they may not understand or even enjoy with the intention of realising a longer term beneficial outcome - be it less downtime, or the ability to walk up the stairs without running out of breath.
So to explain how this is relevant let me take you through the process that most good quality gyms will take you through when you join:
Your Gym Fitness Instructor:
- You meet an instructor who chats about why you’re there, helps you to identify your desired outcomes, and helps you to create a rough plan of your objectives.
- The instructor takes you to the first machine. Tells you what it does and how it works. The instructor then gets on the machine and demonstrates some repetitions
- You get on the machine and repeat what the instructor did. The instructor coaches and guides you till they’re happy you can repeat without them.
- Repeat for each machine on your programme.
- At the end of the tour the instructor checks that you’re happy, completes your plan with you, and tells you when they’ll review progress.
- Some time in the next couple of weeks the instructor catches up with you and reviews progress. Helps you with any difficulties and may fine tune the programme.
- Final review and programme tweak for the next stage
Your Traditional Manufacturing Manager:
- You need to do this because it’s in your objectives/we have to meet an order/we’re in the brown stuff.
- Do you understand?
- Yes brilliant, get on with it come to me if you have a problem.
- Review…hmmm our OEE is still the same. Why aren’t we getting the results that we want? Must be something wrong with………(start listing excuses here).
Be honest - is your method of getting your team to act
differently more like example 1 or example 2?
What would be the impact on our teams if we were to spend
more time as OEE Fitness Instructors and less time as managers?
Look how easy an XL800 installation is!!!
April 2, 2009 by david.evanson
We think you’ll like this - XL800 is SUCH an easy easy installation you really can get it working in hours…and in most instances we only need 3 cables wired to the board.
It really is that easy!
Literally within hours of taking it out of the box you will:
- Be monitoring your OEE
- Be monitoring your takt time and cycle times
- Be upgrading your Andon lamps with USEFUL downtime alerts not just flashing lights
- Be monitoring your total output
- Be monitoring your 3 losses to OEE - availability, quality, and performance
And this is before you even put it on your production network and start entering targets and using the other really cool features…and we haven’t even started on what you could do with the full 22 inputs we have available.
To prove just how easy the installation is, check out this pdf link below - it will show you where to take you count sensors from and the 3 cables you need to start getting great results.
Click here for the pdf link for your XL800 installation
To clarify here’s a summary of what we can give you straight out of the box:
OEE analysis signals and inputs
Plant View with XL800 OEE Systems - coming soon!
April 2, 2009 by david.evanson
Introducing our new OEE Factory Dashboard: Plant View with XL800 OEE Systems
- Would it be useful if you could look at one screen and see a summary of your entire plant OEE?
- Is it important to you to instantly know in real time how well your entire plant is running?
- Imagine how much easier it would be to allocate resource to your worse performing areas…
Now you can with our brand new “Plant View” screen
When you have multiple XL800 OEE Systems installed on your network you can instantly see the real time performance of each machine in one handy factory dashboard.
If you’re a Production Manager or an Engineering Manager you can now see the real time performance of your plant on one screen without even leaving your desk!!!
Naturally we’ll be offering this upgrade free of charge to all existing customers and will contact you directly to pass on this great new feature towards the end of April.
Click on the picture below to see it full screen:
View Multiple XL800 OEE systems on one page
As ever, we are keen to recieve your feedback - let me know what you think about this new addition.
