Definition

    Overall Equipment Effectiveness(OEE)

    Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) measures how effectively equipment is used by combining availability, performance, and quality. It highlights losses from downtime, speed, and defects.

    What is Overall Equipment Effectiveness?

    OEE is a standard metric in manufacturing that shows the percentage of planned production time that is truly productive. It combines three factors: availability (uptime), performance (speed), and quality (first-pass output).

    OEE helps identify where losses occur and provides a common language across operations, maintenance, and quality teams.

    Key Points

    • OEE combines availability, performance, and quality into a single metric
    • World-class OEE is typically above 85%
    • OEE identifies loss categories: downtime, speed loss, and quality loss
    • Improving OEE often requires cross-functional collaboration
    • OEE trends are more important than single-point values

    How to Calculate Overall Equipment Effectiveness

    Formula:

    OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality

    Variables:

    • Availability= Operating Time / Planned Production Time
    • Performance= Ideal Cycle Time x Total Units / Operating Time
    • Quality= Good Units / Total Units

    Example:

    Availability 90%, Performance 95%, Quality 98% => OEE = 0.90 x 0.95 x 0.98 = 0.836 (83.6%).

    Implementation Guide

    Steps:

    1. 1Define planned production time and loss categories
    2. 2Capture downtime and reason codes consistently
    3. 3Measure cycle time against the ideal standard
    4. 4Track first-pass good units for quality factor
    5. 5Calculate OEE daily and review trends
    6. 6Prioritize improvement actions by largest loss category

    Best Practices:

    • Use standardized loss definitions across all lines
    • Automate data capture when possible
    • Separate planned stops from unplanned downtime
    • Review OEE with both operations and maintenance
    • Focus on trend improvement, not just the headline number

    Common Mistakes to Avoid

    • • Inconsistent downtime categorization across shifts
    • • Using target cycle times instead of true ideal cycle time
    • • Counting rework as good units
    • • Ignoring quality losses in favor of uptime only
    • • Comparing OEE across dissimilar processes without normalization

    Qualiteh's Approach to Overall Equipment Effectiveness

    Qualiteh integrates OEE tracking with quality metrics like FPY and COPQ to provide a full view of operational losses. We use this data to prioritize improvement initiatives and validate corrective action impact.

    Related Terms

    Fpy
    Copq
    Spc
    Root Cause Analysis

    Frequently Asked Questions

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