OEE stands for Overall Equipment Effectiveness and essentially it is an efficiency measurement for machinery. This is obviously a hugely important figure for any business sinking unds into expensive machinery as it needs to be sure it is maximising the return on that investment.

The measurement is calculated using three variables - availability,  performance and quality. So for example, if I open a new plant manufacturing cars, the efficiency of a certain piece of kit will be determined by the number of hours each week the kit is available for work, the rate at which it operates during that period of availability, and finally the quality of the output. There will be a planned figure for each of the variables that you believe is the maximum that could conceivably be achieved, and then you measure the actual level achieved in reality. The smaller the discrepancy between the two, the closer you are to reaching the ultimate goal of maximum efficiency!

Or are you?

Many of the variables used to calculate OEE are themselves subjective for example, when I originally worked out my planned availability, I may have reduced this to factor in maintenance time or perhaps I removed an hour for the operators’ lunch break. Maybe my planned performance levels were generously degraded to account for problems with temperature as the machine was positioned in the hottest part of the factory. And likewise with quality, it may be that what we felt should constitute a “good product” at the outset was quite lenient to account for unreliable raw materials.

Each of these problems at the time was accepted as inevitable, but on reflection could they have been remedied or at least reduced? It might be that through some simple re-organisation the lunch break could in fact be covered and avoid the need for an hours’ downtime. Maybe we could also look for ways to reduce the temperature of the area surrounding the machine or even relocate it to a cooler part of the factory. And likewise if the quality of the raw materials is unreliable, well then surely we should be reconsidering our choice of suppliers?

These developments are not all going to happen at once, but by periodically looking for ways to raise the bar and with it the three key variables used to measure OEE, we ensure that the exercise fulfils its primary purpose which is to stretch our resources and get ever closer to the true figure of maximum efficiency!