The majority of factory equipment provides data in the form of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) as part of live productivity metrics. When it comes to ensuring quality control, unit uptime, availability and performance, OEE is vital in understanding where losses and inefficiency can creep into production processes.
That data proves vital with the UK manufacturing industry under terrible pressure from rising energy, water and input costs. And as many suffer crippling workforce issues, the power of the measurable benefits of automation has never been greater.
The Key Last Miles for OEE
Data from OEE also supports the development of digital twins to test predictive maintenance scenarios, plan future production upgrades and reduce waste and other costs. And from a management or board-level overview perspective, OEE provides insights into total time lost, where some 60% uptime is considered good and 85% great.
That still leaves between 15% and 40% to be recovered depending on their goals. Since most manufacturers now use OEE, its use for competitive advantage only comes into play for those last few percentage points, which can still provide key market share benefits.
What has changed recently is the commoditisation of OEE software with clear and adaptive dashboards, highlighting key information, and delivering predictive insights and reports automatically generated to support the business, and answer the big what-if questions from the leadership.
Adding Manufacturing to the Big Data Collective
Most firms already have enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software to increase efficiencies between departments. Manufacturing and supply chains can join in the data harvest with OEE and live transit data, linking every end of the business from parts and material supplies to dispatch and returns through customer service.
The complete approach to understanding the business helps develop seasonal, operational and other trends that manufacturing must be able to cope with, and the OEE data can demonstrate what is possible, or where upgrades or process changes are needed.
Quoted results from use of OEE are typically around 10% to 30% improvement in productivity within a couple of years, if not sooner. And with fully integrated data across the business, quality control can be improved, product development times shortened and greater use of customer feedback helping improve features or designs.
The Key Role OEE Plays in Automated Environments
Moving from a broad view across the business to the laser-sharp focus of OEE and other measuring systems on an Internet of Things (IoT)-connected environment, data plays a key role in keeping the production processes flowing.
All it takes is one feeder/supply line to reduce its speed by a few percentage points, and that can throw out the other automated elements of a production process. OEE data can report the slowdown in real-time, and while the resolution might be clogged materials or a snagged conveyor, if there’s something more serious, it can be addressed rapidly by maintenance management.
Beyond dealing with typical production problems, OEE also creates the opportunity for manufacturers to fine-tune their production lines, improving performance with existing equipment or viewing the cost-benefit analysis of any upgrade or strategic change.
The OEE data also supports all levels of workers within manufacturing, providing training insights for better operations, methods to boost production and support management decisions. And across other departments, leaders can understand the value, limitations and possibilities of production.
Alongside digital twins and OEE data, using new AI tools, workers can suggest or plug in ideas to see where efficiencies are possible without accessing live production systems.
Business planners can consider alternative suppliers to boost production rates, outsourcing some manufacturing elements to address overly complex manufacturing issues, while other changes between manual and automated operations can be tested in a digital twin based on the live OEE data.
With budgets and the global economic situation looking dire for some time to come, understanding the benefits that OEE data can provide can make the difference between closing down a factory or seeing it thrive into the next decade.
And with wholly automated factories springing up around the world, those small decisions now can help protect the UK’s manufacturing knowledge and skills in an increasingly hostile business environment.
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